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CONTENTS. 

I 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGB 

Biographical . . * 1 



CHAPTER II. 
Eraser's Magaziivk and Punch 61 

CHAPTER III. • 
Vanity Fair 89 



CHAPTER IV. 
Pendennis and The Newcomes . 106 



CHAPTER V. 
Esmond and The Virginians 119 

CHAPTER VI. 
Thackeray's Burlesques 136 



vi CONTENTS. • 

CHAPTER VIL 

PAGE 

Thackeray's Lectures 151 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Thackeray's Ballads 165 

CHAPTER IX. 
Thackeray's Style and Manner of Work .... 181 



THACKERAY. 



CHAPTER I. 



BIO G RAPHIC AL 



Ik the foregoing volumes of this series of English Mm 
of Letters^ and in other works of a similar nature which 
have appeared lately as to the Ancient Classics and For- 
eign Classics, biography has naturally been, if not the lead- 
ing, at any rate a considerable element. The desire is 
common to all readers to know not only what a great 
writer has written, but also of what nature has been the 
man who has produced such great work. As to all the 
authors taken in hand before, there has been extant some 
written record of the man's life. Biographical details 
have been more or less known to the world, so that, 
whether of a Cicero, or of a Goethe, or of our own John- 
son, there has been a story to tell. Of Thackeray no life 
has been written ; and though they who knew him — and 
possibly many who did not — are conversant with anec- 
dotes of the man, who was one so well known in society as 
to have created many anecdotes, yet there has been no me- 
moir of his life sufficient to supply the wants of even so 
small a work as this purports to be. For this the reason 

1* 



2 'THACKERAY. [chaj*. 

may simply be told. Thackeray, not long before his 
death, had had his taste offended by some fulsome biogra- 
phy. Paragraphs, of which the eulogy seemed to have 
been the produce rather of personal love than of inquiry 
or judgment, disgusted him, and he begged of his girls 
that when he should have gone there should nothing of 
the sort be done with his name. 

We can imagine how his mind had worked, how he had 
declared to himself that, as by those loving hands into 
which his letters, his notes, his little details — his literary 
remains, as such documents used to be called — might nat- 
urally fall, truth of his foibles and of his shortcomings 
could not be told, so should not his praises be written, or 
that flattering portrait be limned which biographers are 
wont to produce. Acting upon these instructions, his 
daughters — while there were two living, and since that the 
one surviving — have carried out the order which has ap- 
peared to them to be sacred. Such being the case, it cer- 
tainly is not my purpose now to write what may be called 
a life of Thackeray. In this preliminary chapter I will 
give such incidents and anecdotes of his life as will tell 
the reader perhaps all about him that a reader is entitled 
to ask. I will tell how he became an author, and will say 
how first he worked and struggled, and then how he work- 
ed and prospered, and became a household word in Eng- 
lish literature ; how, in this way, he passed through that 
course of mingled failure and success which, though the 
literary aspirant may suifer, is probably better both for the 
writer and for the writings than unclouded early glory. 
The suffering, no doubt, is acute, and a touch of melancholy, 
perhaps of indignation, may be given to words which have 
been written while the heart has been too flill of its own 
wrongs ; but this is better than the continued note of tri- 



i] BlOGllAPHICAL. g 

umph, whicti is still heard in the final voices of tTie spoilt 
child of literature, even when they are losing their music. 
Then I will tell how Thackeray died, early indeed, but still 
having done a good life's work. Something of his man- 
ner, something of his appearance I can say, something per- 
haps of his condition of mind ; because for some years he 
was known to me. But of the continual intercourse of 
himself with the world, and of himself with his own works, 
I can tell little, because no record of his life has been made 
public. 

William Makepeace Thackeray was born at Calcutta, on 
July 18, 1811. His father was Richmond Thackeray, son 
of W. M. Thackeray of Hadley, near Barnet, in Middlesex. 
A relation of his, of the same name, a Eev. Mr. Thackeray, 
I knew well as rector of Hadley, many years afterwards. 
Him I believe to have been a second cousin of our Thack- 
eray, but I think they had never met each other. Anoth- 
er cousin was Provost of Kings at Cambridge, fifty years 
ago, as Cambridge men will remember. Clergymen of the 
family have been numerous in England during the century ; 
and there was one, a Rev. Elias Thackeray, whom I also 
knew in my youth, a dignitary, if I remember right, in the 
diocese of Meath. The Thackerays seem to have affected 
the Church ; but such was. not at any period of his life the 
bias of our novelist's mind. 

His father and grandfather wxre Indian civil servants. 
His mother was Anne Becher, whose father was also in 
the Company's service. She married early in India, and 
was only nineteen when her son was born.^ She was left 
a widow in 1816, with only one child, and was married a 
few years afterwards to Major Henry Carmichael Smyth, 
with whom Thackeray lived on terms of affectionate inter- 
course till the major died. All who knew William Make 



4 THACKERAY. [chap. 

peace remember Ws mother well, a handsome, spare, gray- 
haired lady, whom Thackeray treated with a courtly def- 
erence as well as constant affection. There was, however, 
something of discrepancy between them as to matters of 
religion. Mrs. Carmichael Smyth was disposed to the 
somewhat austere observance of the evangelical 'section of 
the Church. Such, certainly, never became the case with 
her son. There was disagreement on the subject, and 
probably unhappiness at intervals, but never, I think, quar- 
relling. Thackeray's house was his mother's home when- 
ever she pleased it, and the home also of his stepfather. 

He was brought a child from India, and was sent early to 
the Charter House. Of his life and doings there his friend 
and school-fellow George Venables writes to me as follows: 

" My recollection of him, though fresh enough, does not 
furnish much material for biograph}^ He came to school 
young — a pretty, gentle, and rather timid boy. I think 
his experience there was not generally pleasant. Though 
he had afterwards a scholarlike knowledge of Latin, he did 
not attain distinction in the school ; and I should think 
that the character of the head-master. Dr. Russell, which 
was vigorous, unsympathetic, and stern, though not severe, 
was uncongenial to his own. With the boys who knew 
him, Thackeray was popular ; but he had no skill in games, 
and, I think, no taste for them. . . . He was already known 
by his faculty of making verses, chiefly parodies. I only 
remember one line of one parody on a poem of L. E. L.'s, 
about * Violets, dark blue violets;' Thackeray's version 
was ^ Cabbages, bright green cabbages,' and we thought it 
very witty. He took part in a scheme, which came to 
nothing, for a school magazine, and he wrote verses for it, 
of which I only remember that they were good of their 



t.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 5 

kind. When I knew him better, in later years, I thought 
I could recognize the sensitive nature which he had as a 
boy. . . . His change of retrospective feeling about his 
school days was very characteristic. In his earlier books 
he always spoke of the Charter House as Slaughter House 
and Smithfield. As he became famous and prosperous his 
memory softened, and Slaughter House was changed into 
Grey Friars, where Colonel Newcome ended his life." 

In February, 1829, when he was not as yet eighteen, 
Thackeray went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and 
was, I think, removed in 1830. It may be presumed, 
therefore, that his studies there were not very serviceable 
to him-; There are few, if any, records left of his doings 
at the university — unless it be the fact that he did there 
commence the literary work of his life. The line about 
the cabbages, and the scheme of the school magazine, can 
hardly be said to have amounted even to a commence- 
ment. In 1829 a little periodical was brought out at 
Cambridge, called The Snoh, with an assurance on the 
title that it was not conducted by members of the univer- 
sity. It is presumed that Thackeray took a hand in edit- 
ing this. He certainly wrote, and published in the little 
paper, some burlesque lines on the subject which was 
given for the Chancellor's prize poem of the year. This 
was TimbuctoOj and Tennyson was the victor on the occa- 
sion. There is some good fun in the four first and fouf 
last lines of Thackeray's production. 

In Africa — a quarter of the world — 

Men's skins are black ; their hair is crisped and curled ; 

And sotnewhere there, unknown to public view, 

A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo. 



'6 THACKERAY. [cHAt> 

I see her tribes the hill of glory mount, 
And sell their sugars on their own account; 
While round her throne the prostrate nations come. 
Sue for her rice, and barter for her rum, 

I cannot find in The Snob internal evidence of much 
literary merit beyond this. But then how many great 
writers have there been from whose early lucubrations no 
future literary excellence could be prognosticated ? 

There is something at any rate in the name of the pub- 
lication which tells of work that did come. Thackeray's 
mind was at all times peculiarly exercised with a sense of 
snobbishness. His appreciation of the vice grew abnor- 
mally, so that at last he had a morbid horror of a snob — 
a morbid fear lest this or the other man should turn snob 
on his hands. It is probable that the idea was taken from 
the early Snob at Cambridge, either from his own partici- 
pation in the work or from his remembrance of it. The 
Snob lived, I think, but nine weeks, and was followed at 
an interval, in 1830, by The Gownsman, wliich lived to 
the seventeenth number, and at the opening of which 
Thackeray no doubt had a hand. It professed to be a 
continuation of The Snob. It contains a dedication to all 
proctors, which I should not be sorry to attribute to him. 
'' To all Proctors, past, present, and future — 

Whose taste it is our privilege to follow, 
Whose virtue it is our duty to imitate, 
Whose presence it is our interest to avoid." 

There is, however, nothing beyond fancy to induce me to 
believe that Thackeray was the author of the dedication, 
and I do not know that there is any evidence to show that 
he was connected with The Snob beyond the writing of 
Timbiictoo. 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 7 

In 1830 he left Cambridge, and went to "Weimar eithef 
in that year or in 1831, Between Wdmar and Paris he 
spent some portion of his earlier years, while his family — 
his mother, that is, and his stepfather — were living in 
Devonshire. It was then the purport of his life to be- 
come an artist, and he studied drawing at Paris, affecting 
especially Bonnington, the young English artist who had 
himself painted at Paris, and who had died in 1828. He 
never learned to draw — -perhaps never could have learned. 
That he was idle, and did not do his best, we may take 
for granted. He was always idle, and only on some occa- 
sions, when the spirit moved him thoroughly, did he do 
his best even in after-life. But with drawing — or rather 
without it — he did wonderfully well even when he did his 
worst. He did illustrate his own books, and everyone 
knows how incorrect were his delineations. But as illus- 
trations they were excellent. How often have I wished 
that characters of my own creating might be sketched as 
faultily, if with the same appreciation of the intended pur- 
pose. Let anyone look at the " plates," as they are called 
in Vanity Fair ^ and compare each with the scenes and 
the characters intended to be displayed, and there see 
whether the artist — if we may call him so — has not man- 
aged to convey in the picture the exact feeling which he 
has described in the text. I have a little sketch of his, in 
which a cannon-ball is supposed to have just carried off 
the head of an aide-de-camp — messenger I had perhaps 
better say, lest I might affront military feelings — who is 
kneeling on the field of battle and delivering a despatch 
to Marlborough on horseback. The graceful ease with 
which the duke receives the message though the messen- 
ger's head be gone, and the soldier-like precision with 
which the headless hero finishes his l^t effort of military 



8, THACKERAY. [chap. 

obedience, may not have been portrayed with well-drawn 
figures, but no finished illustration ever told its story bet- 
ter. Dickens has informed us that he first met Thackeray 
in 1835, on which occasion the young artist aspirant, look- 
ing no doubt after profitable employment, " proposed to 
become the illustrator of my earliest book." It is singu- 
lar that such should have been the first interview between 
the two great novelists. We may presume that the offer 
was rejected. 

In 1832, Thackeray came of age, and inherited his fort- 
une — as to which various stories have been told. It 
seems to have amounted to about five hundred a year, and 
to have passed through his hands in a year or two, interest 
and principal. It has been told of him that it was all 
taken away from him at cards, but such was not the truth. 
Some went in an Indian bank in which he invested it. 
A portion was lost at cards. But with some of it — the 
larger part, as I think — he endeavoured, in concert with 
his stepfather, to float a newspaper, which failed. There 
seem to have been two newspapers in which he was so 
concerned. The National Standard and The Constitutional, 
On the latter he was engaged with his stepfather, and in 
carrying that on he lost the last of his money. The Na- 
tional Standard had been running for some weeks when 
Thackeray joined it, and lost his money in it. It ran only 
for little more than twelve months, and then, the money 
having gone, the periodical came to an end. I know no 
road to fortune more tempting to a young man, or one 
that with more certainty leads to ruin. Thackeray, who 
in a way more or less correct, often refers in his writings, 
if not to the incidents, at any rate to the remembrances of 
his own life, tells us much of the story of this newspaper 
in Lovel the Widower. " They are welcome," says the bach- 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 9 

elor, " to make merry at my charges in respect of a certain 
bargain which I made on coming to London, and in which, 
had I been Moses Primrose purchasing green spectacles, I 
could scarcely have been more taken in. My Jenkinson was 
an old college acquaintance, whom I was idiot enough to 
imagine a respectable man. The fellow had a very smooth 
tongue and sleek sanctified exterior. He was rather a 
popular preacher, and used to cry a good deal in the pulpit 
He and a queer wine-merchant and bill discounter, Sher- 
rick by name, had somehow got possession of that neat lit- 
tle literary paper. The Museum^ which perhaps you remem- 
ber, and this eligible literary property my friend Honey- 
man, with his wheedling tongue, induced me to purchase." 
Here is the history of Thackeray's money, told by himself 
plainly enough, but with no intention on his part of nar- 
rating an incident in his own life to the public. But the 
drollery of the circumstances, his own mingled folly and 
young ambition, struck him as being worth narration, and 
the more forcibly as he remembered all the ins and outs of 
his own reflections at the time — how he had meant to en- 
chant the world, and make his fortune. There was liter- 
ary capital in it of which he could make use after so many 
years. Then he tells us of this ambition, and of the folly 
of it; and at the same time puts forward the excuses to 
be made for it. " I daresay I gave myself airs as editor 
of that confounded Museum, and proposed to educate 
the public taste, to diffuse morality and sound literature 
throughout the nation, and to pocket a liberal salary in 
return for my services. I daresay I printed my own son- 
nets, my own tragedy, my own verses. ... I daresay I 
wrote satirical articles. ... I daresay I made a gaby of 
myself to the world. Pray, my good friend, hast thou 
never done likewise ? If thou bast never beei] a fool, be 



10 THACKERAY. [chap. 

sure thou wilt never be a wise man." Thackeray was 
quite aware of his early weaknesses, and in the maturity 
of life knew well that he had not been precociously wise. 
He delighted so to tell his friends, and he delighted also 
to tell the public, not meaning that any but an inner cir- 
cle should know that he was speaking of himself. But 
the story now is plain to all who can read.* 

It was thus that he lost his money ; and then, not hav- 
ing prospered very well with his drawing lessons in Paris 
or elsewhere, he was fain to take up literature as a pro- 
fession. It is a business which has its allurements. It 
requires no capita], no special education, no training, and 
may be taken up at any time without a moment's delay. 
If a man can command a table, a chair, a pen, paper, and 
ink, he can commence his trade as literary man. It is 
thus that aspirants generally do commence it. A man 
may or may not have another employment to back him, 
or means of his own ; or — as was the case with Thackeray, 
when, after his first misadventure, he had to look about 
him for the means of living — he may have nothing but 
his intellect and his friends. But the idea comes to the 
man that as he has the pen and ink, and time on his hand, 
why should he not write and make money ? 

It is an idea that comes to very many men and women, 
old as well as young — to many thousands who at last are 
crushed by it, of whom the world knows nothing. A man 

^ The report that he had lost all his money and was going to live 
by painting in Paris, was still prevalent in London in 1836. Macrea- 
dy, on the 2'7th April of that year, says in his Diary : "At Garrick 
Club, where I dined and eaw the papers. Met Thackeray, who has 
spent all his fortune, and is now about to settle in Paris, I believe as 
an artist." But at thi& time he was, in trui-h, turning to lit^rg^tiir? 
fis a profession. 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. H 

can make the attempt though he has not a coat fit to go 
out into the street with ; or a woman, though she be almost 
in rags. There is no apprenticeship wanted. Indeed, there 
is no room for such apprenticeship. It is an art which no 
one teaches ; there is no professor who, in a dozen lessons, 
even pretends to show the aspirant how to write a book 
or an article. If you would be a watchmaker, you must 
learn ; or a lawyer, a cook, or even a housemaid. Before 
you can clean a horse you must go into the stable, and be- 
gin at the beginning. Even the cab-driving tiro must sit 
for awhile on the box, and learn something of the streets, 
before he can ply for a fare. But the literary beginner 
rushes at once at the top rung of his ladder — as though a 
youth, having made up his mind to be a clergyman, should 
demand, without preliminary steps, to be appointed Bish- 
op of London. That he should be able to read and write 
is presumed, and that only. So much may be presumed 
of everyone, and nothing more is wanted. 

In truth nothing more is wanted — except those inner 
lights as to which so many men live and die without hav- 
ing learned whether they possess them or not. Practice, 
industry, study of literature, cultivation of taste, and the 
rest, will of course lend their aid, will probably be neces- 
sary before high excellence is attained. But the instances 
are not to seek — are at the fingers of us all — in which the 
first uninstructed effort has succeeded. A boy, almost, or 
perhaps an old woman, has sat down and the book has 
come, and the world has read it, and the booksellers have 
been civil and have written their cheques. When all 
trades, all professions, all seats at offices, all employments 
at which a crust can be earned, are so crowded that a 
young man knows not where to look for the means of live- 
lihood, is there not an attraction in this which to the self- 
B 



12 THACKERAY. [chap. 

confident must be almost invincible ? The booksellers ara 
courteous and write their cheques, but that is not half the 
whole ? Monstrari digito ! That is obtained. The hap- 
py aspirant is written of in newspapers, or, perhaps, better 
still, he writes of others. When the barrister of forty -five 
has hardly got a name beyond Chancery Lane, this glori- 
ous young scribe, with the first down on his lips, has print- 
ed his novel and been talked about. 

The temptation is irresistible, and thousands fall into it. 
How is a man to know that he is not the lucky one or the 
gifted one ? There is the table, and there the pen and ink. 
Among the unfortunate, he who fails altogether and from 
the first start is not the most unfortunate. A short pe- 
riod of life is wasted, and a sharp pang is endured. Then 
the disappointed one is relegated to the condition of life 
which he would otherwise have filled a little earlier. He 
has been wounded, but not killed, or even maimed. But 
he who has a little success, who succeeds in earning a few 
halcyon, but ah ! so dangerous guineas, is drawn into a 
trade from which he will hardly escape till he be driven 
from it, if he come out alive, by sheei* hunger. He hangs 
on till the guineas become crowns and shillings — till some 
sad record of his life, made when .he applies for charity, 
declares that he has worked hard for the last year or two, 
and has earned less than a policeman in the streets or a 
porter at a railway. It is to that that he is brought by 
applying himself to a business which requires only a table 
and chair, with pen, ink, and paper ! It is to that which 
he is brought by venturing to believe that he has been 
gifted with powers of imagination, creation, and expres- 
sion. 

The young man who makes the attempt knows that ho 
must run the chance. He is well aware that nine must 



1.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 13 

fail where one will make his running good. So much as 
that does reach his ears, and recommends itself to his com- 
mon-sense. But why should it not be he as well as an- 
other? There is always some lucky one winning the 
prize. And this prize when it has been won is so well 
worth the winning! He can endure starvation — so he 
tells himself — as well as another. He will try. But yet 
he knows that he has but one chance out of ten in his fa- 
vour, and it is only in his happier moments that he flatters 
himself that that remains to him. Then there falls upon 
him — in the midst of that labour which for its success es- 
pecially requires that a man's heart shall be light, and that 
he be always at his best — doubt and despair. If there be 
no chance, of what use is his labor ? 

Were it not better done as others use, 
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 

and amuse himself after that fashion ? Thus the very in- 
dustry which alone could give him a chance is discarded. 
It is so that the young man feels who, with some slight 
belief in himself and with many doubts, sits down to com- 
mence the literary labor by which he hopes to live. 

So it was, no doubt, with Thackeray. Such were his 
hopes and his fears — with a resolution of which we can 
well understand that it should have waned at times, of 
earning his bread, if he did not make his fortune, in the 
world of literature. One has not to look far for evidence 
of the condition I have described — that it was so, Amaryl- 
lis and all. How or when he made his very first attempt 
in London, I have not learned ; but he had not probably 
spent his money without forming " press " acquaintances, 
and had thus formed an aperture for the tlin end of the 
wedge. He wrote for The Constitutional^ of which liQ 



14 THACKERAY. [char 

was part pi'oprietor, beginning his work for that paper 
as a correspondent from Paris. For awhile he was con* 
nected with The Times newspaper, though his work there 
did not, I think, amount to much. His first regular em- 
ployment was on Fraser^s Magazine^ when Mr. Fraser's 
shop was in Regent Street, when Oliver Yorke was the 
presumed editor, and among contributors, Carlyle was one 
of the mpst notable. I imagine that the battle of life was 
difficult enough with him even after he had become one 
of the leading props of that magazine. All that he wrote 
was not taken, and all that was taken was not approved. 
In 1837-38, the History of Samuel Titmarsh and the 
Great Hoggarty Diamond appeared in the magazine. The 
Great Hoggarty Diamond is now known to all readers of 
Thackeray's works. It is not my puipose to speak spe- 
cially of it here, except to assert that it has been thought 
to be a great success. When it was being brought out, the 
author told a friend of his — and of mine — that it was not 
much thought of at Fraser's, and that he had been called 
upon to shorten it. That is an incident disagreeable in its 
nature to any literary gentleman, and likely to be specially 
so when he knows that his provision of bread, certainly of 
improved bread and butter, is at stake. The man who 
thus darkens his literary brow with the frown of disap- 
proval, has at his disposal all the loaves and all the fish; 
es that are going. If the writer be successful, there will 
come a time when he will be above such frowns; but, 
when that opinion went forth, Thackeray had not yet 
made his footing good, and the notice to him respecting it 
must have been very bitter. It was in writing this Hog- 
garty Diamond that Thackeray first invented the name 
of Michael Anoelo Titmarsh. Samuel Titmarsh was the 
writer, whereas Michael Angelo was an intendino- ilUistra- 



i.] ftlOGRAPHICAt. Is 

tor. Thackeray's iiose had been broken in d school fight, 
while he was quite a little boy, by another little boy, at 
the Charter House ; and there was probably some associa- 
tion intended to be jocose with the name of the great art- 
ist, whose nose was broken by his fellow-student Torrigi- 
ano, and who, as it happened, died exactly three centuries 
before Thackeray. 

I can understand all the disquietude of his lieart when 
that warning, as to the too great length of his story, was 
given to him. He was not a man capable of feeling at 
any time quite assured in his position, and when that oc- 
curred he was very far from assurance. I think that at 
no time did he doubt the sufficiency of his own mental 
qualification for the work he had taken in hand ; but he 
doubted all else. He doubted the appreciation of the 
world ; he doubted his fitness for turning his intellect 
to valuable account; he doubted his physical capacity — 
dreading his own lack of industry ; he doubted his luck ; 
he doubted the continual absence of some of those mis- 
fortunes on which the works of literary men are ship- 
wrecked. Though he was aware of his own power, he 
always, to the last, was afraid that his own deficiencies 
should be too strong against him. It was his nature to 
be idle — to put off his work — and then to be angry with 
himself for putting it off. Ginger was hot in the mouth 
with him, and all the allurements of the world were strong 
upon him. To find on Monday morning an excuse why 
he should not on Monday do Monday's work was, at the 
time, an inexpressible relief to him, but had become a deep 
regret — almost a remorse — before the Monday was over. 
To such a one it Avas not given to believe in himself with 
that sturdy rock-bound foundation which we see to have 
belonged to some men from the earliest struggles of their 



in THACKERAY. [chap 

career. To him, then, must have come ati inexpressible 
pang when he was told that his story must be curtailed. 

Who else would have told such a story of himself to 
the first acquaintance he chanced to meet ? Of Thackeray 
it might be predicted that he certainly would do so. No 
little wound of the kind ever came to him but what he 
disclosed it at once. *'They have only bought so many 
of my new book." " Have you seen the abuse of my last 
number?" "What am I to turn my hand to? They are 
getting tired of my novels." " They don't read it," he 
said to me of Esmond, " So you don't mean to publish 
my work?" he said once to a publisher in an open com- 
pany. Other men keep their little troubles to themselves. 
I have heard even of authors who have declared how all 
the publishers were running after their books ; I have 
heard some discourse freely of their fourth and fifth edi- 
tions ; I have known an author to boast of his thousands 
sold in this country, and his tens of thousands in Amer- 
ica; but I never heard anyone else declare that no one 
would read his chef-d'oeuvre, and that the world was be- 
coming tired of him. It was he who said, when he was 
fifty, that a ifian past fifty should never write a novel. 

And yet, as I have said, he was from an early age fully 
conscious of his own ability. That he was so is to be 
seen in the handling of many of his early works — in Bar- 
ry Lyndon, for instance, and the Memoirs of Mr, C. James 
Yellowplush. The sound is too certain for doubt of that 
kind. But he had not then, nor did he ever achieve that 
assurance of public favour which makes a man confident 
that his work will be successful. During the years of 
which we are now speaking Thackeray was a literary 
Bohemian in this sense — that he never regarded his own 
status as certain. W^hile performincr much of the best 



i.] BIOGRAPHICAL 17 

of his lifers work he was not sure of his market, not cer- 
tain of his readers, his publishers, or his price ; nor was he 
certain of himself. 

It is impossible not to form some contrast between him 
and Dickens as to this period of his life — a comparison 
not as to their literary merits, but literary position. Dick- 
ens was one year his junior in age, and at this time, viz., 
1837-38, had reached almost the zenith of his reputation. 
Pickwick had been published, and Oliver Twist and Nich- 
olas Nickleby were being published. All the world was 
talking about the young author who was assuming his po- 
sition with a confidence in his own powers which was fully 
justified both by his present and future success. It was 
manifest that he could make, not only his own fortune, 
but that of his publishers, and that he was a literary hero 
bound to be worshipped by all literary grades of men, 
down to the "devils" of the printing-office. At that 
time Thackeray, the older man, was still doubting, still 
hesitating, still struggling. Everyone then had accepted 
the name of Charles Dickens. That of William Thack- 
eray was hardly known beyond the circle of those who are 
careful to make themselves acquainted with such matters. 
It was then the custom, more generally than it is at pres- 
ent, to maintain anonymous writing in magazines. Now, 
if anything of special merit be brought out, the name of 
the author, if not published, is known. It was much less 
so at the period in question ; and as the world of readers 
began to be acquainted with Jeames Yellowplush, Cath- 
erine Hayes, and other heroes and heroines, the names of 
the author had to be inquired for. I remember myself, 
when I was already well acquainted with the immortal 
Jeames, asking who was the writer. The works of Charles 
Dickens were at that time as well known to be his. 



18 THACKERAY. [chap. 

and as widely read in England, as those almost of Shake- 
speare. 

It will be said, of course, that this came from the earlier 
popularity of Dickens. That is of course ; but why should 
it have been so ? They had begun to make their effort 
much at the same time ; and if there was any advantage 
in point of position as they commenced, it was with Thack- 
eray. It might be said that the genius of the one was 
brighter than that of the other, or, at any rate, that it was 
more precocious. But after- judgment has, I think, not 
declared either of the suggestions to be true. I will make 
no comparison between two such rivals, who were so dis- 
tinctly different from each, and each of whom, within so 
very short a period, has come to stand on a pedestal so 
high — the two exalted to so equal a vocation. And if 
Dickens showed the best of his power early in life, so did 
Thackeray the best of his intellect. In no display of 
mental force did he rise above Barry Lyndon. I hardly 
know how the teller of a narrative shall hope to mount 
in simply intellectual faculty above the effort there made. 
In what, then, was the difference ? Why was Dickens 
already a great man when Thackeray was still a literary 
Bohemian ? 

The answer is to be found not in the extent or in the 
nature of the genius of either man, but in the condition of 
mind — which indeed may be read plainly in their works 
by those who have eyes to see. The one was steadfast, 
industrious, full of purpose, never doubting of himself, al- 
ways putting his best foot foremost and standing firmly 
on it when he got it there ; with no inward trepidation, 
with no moments in which he was half inclined to think 
that this race was not for his winning, this goal not to 
be reached by his struggles. The sympathy of friends 



l] biographical. 19 

was good to him, but he could have done without it. The 
good opinion which he had of himself was never shaken 
by adverse criticism ; and the criticism on the other side, 
by which it was exalted, came from the enumeration of 
the number of copies sold. He was a firm, reliant man, 
very little prone to change, who, when he had discovered 
the nature of his own talent, knew how to do the very 
best with it. 

It may almost be said that Thackeray was the very op- 
posite of this. Unsteadfast, idle, changeable of purpose, 
aware of his own intellect but not trusting it, no man ever 
failed more generally than he to put his best foot fore-^ 
most. Full as his works are of pathos, full of humour, 
full of love and charity, tending, as they always do, to 
truth and honour, and manly worth and womanly modes- 
ty, excelling, as they seem to me to do, most other written 
precepts that I know, they always seem to lack something 
that might have been there. There is a touch of vague- 
ness which indicates that his pen was not firm while he 
was using it. He seems to me to have been dreaming ever 
of some high flight, and then to have told himself, with a 
half-broken heart, that it was beyond his power to soar up 
into those bright regions. I can fancy, as the sheets went 
from him every day, he told himself, in regard to every 
sheet, that it was a failure. Dickens was quite sure of his 
sheets. 

" I have got to make it shorter !" Then he would put 
his hands in his pockets, and stretch himself, and straight- 
en the lines of his face, over which a smile would come, 
as though this intimation from his editor were the best 
joke in the world ;. and he would walk away, with his heart 
bleeding, and every nerve in an agony. There are none of 
us who want to have much of his work shortened now. 



20 THACKERAY. [crtAP. 

In 1837 Thackeray married Isabella, daughter of Colonel 
Matthew Shawe, and from this union there came three 
daughters, Anne, Jane, and Harriet. The name of the 
eldest, now Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, who has followed so 
closely in her father's steps, is a household word to the 
world of novel readers ; the second died as a child ; the 
younger lived to marry Leslie Stephen, who is too well 
known for me to say more than that he wrote, the other 
day, the little volume on Dr. Johnson in this series ; but 
she, too, has now followed her father. Of Thackeray's 
married life what need be said shall be contained in a verv 
few words. It was grievously unhappy ; but the misery 
of it came from God, and was in no wise due to human 
fault. She became ill, and her mind failed her. There 
was a period during which he would not believe that her 
illness was more than illness, and then he clung to her and 
waited on her with an assiduity of affection which only 
made his task the more painful to him. At last it became 
evident that she should live in the companionship of some 
one with whom her life might be altogether quiet, and she 
has since been domiciled with a ladv w^ith whom she has 
been happy. Thus she was, after but a few years of mar- 
ried life, taken away from him, and he became, as it were, 
ft widower till the end of his days. 

At this period, and indeed for some years after his mar- 
riage, his chief literary dependence was on Fraser's Moga- 
zine. He wrote also at this time in the JVew Monthly 
Magazine, In 1840 he brought out his Paris Sketch 
Book, as to which he tells us, by a notice printed v> ith the 
first edition, that half of the sketches had already been 
published in various periodicals. Here he used the name 
Michael Angelo Titmarsh, as he did also with the Journey 
from. Cornhill to Cairo. Dickens had called himself Boz, 



i.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 21 

and clung to the name with persistency as long as the 
public would permit it. Thackeray's affection for assumed 
names was more intermittent, though I doubt whether 
he used his own name altogether till it appeared on the 
title-page of Vanity Fair, About this time began his 
connection with Punchy in which much of his best work 
appeared. Looking back at our old friend as he used to 
come out from week to week at this time, we can hardly 
boast that we used to recognise how good the literary 
pabulum was that was then given for our consumption. 
We have to admit that the ordinary reader, as the ordinary 
picture-seer, requires to be guided by a name. We are 
moved to absolute admiration by a Raphael or a Hobbema, 
but hardly till we have learned the name of the painter, 
or, at any rate, the manner of his painting. I am not sure 
that all lovers of poetry would recognise a Lycidas com- 
ing from some hitherto unknown Milton. Gradually the 
good picture or the fine poem makes its way into the 
minds of a slowly discerning public. Punchy no doubt, 
became very popular, owing, perhaps, more to Leech, its 
artist, than to any other single person. Gradually the 
world of readers began to know that there was a speciality 
of humour to be found in its pages — fun and sense, satire 
and good -humour, compressed together in small literary 
morsels as the nature of its columns required. Gradually 
the name of Thackeray as one of the band of brethren was 
buzzed about, and gradually became known as that of the 
chief of the literary brothers. But during the years in 
which he did much for Punchy say from 1843 to 1853, 
he was still struggling to make good his footing in litera- 
ture. Thev knew him well in the Punch office, and no 
doubt the amount and regularity of the cheques from 
Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, the then and still owners of 



n THACKERAY. [cHaP. 

that happy periodical, made him aware that he had found 
for himself a satisfactory career. In " a good day for 
himself, the journal, and the world, Thackeray found 
Punchy This was said by his old friend Shirley Brooks, 
who himself lived to be editor of the paper and died in 
harness, and was said most truly. Punch was more con- 
isjenial to him, and no doubt more generous, than Fraser, 
There was still something of the literary Bohemian about 
him, but not as it had been before. He was still unfixed, 
looking out for some higher career, not altogether satisfied 
to be no more than one of an anonymous band of broth- 
ers, even though the brothers were the brothers of Punch. 
We can only imagine what were his thoughts as to him- 
self and that other man, who was then known as the 
great novelist of the day — of a rivalry with whom he 
was certainly conscious. Punch was very much to him, 
but was not quite enough. That must have been very 
clear to himself as he meditated the beginning of Vanity 
Fair. 

Of the contributions to the periodical, the best known 
now are The Snob Papers and The Ballads of Police- 
man X. But they were very numerous. Of Thackeray 
as a poet, or maker of verses, •! will say a few words in a 
chapter which will be devoted to his own so-called ballads. 
Here it seems only necessary to remark that there was not 
apparently any time in his career at which he began to 
think seriously of appearing before the public as a poet. 
Such was the intention early in their career with many of 
our best known prose writers, with Milton, and Goldsmith, 
and Samuel Johnson, with Scott, Macaulay, and more lately 
with Matthew Arnold ; writers of verse and prose who 
ultimately prevailed some in one direction, and others in 
the other. Milton and Goldsmith have been known best 



I.] . BIOGRAPHICAL. 2:^ 

as poets, Johnson and Macaulay as writers of prose. But 
with all of them there has been a distinct effort in each 
art. Thackeray seems to have tumbled into versification 
by accident; writing it as amateurs do, a little now and 
again for his own delectation, and to catch the taste of 
partial friends. The reader feels that Thackeray would 
not have begun to print his verses unless the opportunity 
of doing so had been brought in his way by his doings in 
prose. And yet he had begun to write verses w^hen he 
was very young ; — at Cambridge, as we have seen, when he 
contributed more to the fame of Timbuctoo than I think 
even Tennyson has done — and in his early years at Paris. 
Here again, though he must have felt the strength of his 
own mingled humour and pathos, he always struck with an 
uncertain note till he had gathered strength and confi- 
dence by popularity. Good as they generally were, his 
verses were accidents, written not as a writer writes who 
claims to be a poet, but as though they might have been 
the relaxation of a doctor or a barrister. 

And so they were. When Thackeray first settled him- 
self in London, to make his living among the magazines 
and newspapers, I do not imagine that he counted much 
on his poetic powers. He describes it all in his own dia- 
logue between the pen and the album. 

"Since he,'' says the pen, speaking of its master, 
Thackeray : 

'^ Since he my faithful service did engage, 
To follow him through his queer pilgrimage, 
I've drawn and written many a line and page. 

" Caricatures I scribbled have, and rhymes, 
And dinner-cards, and picture pantomimes, 
And many little children's books at times. 



24 THACKERAY. . [chap. 

*' Fve writ the foolish fancy of his brain ; 
The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain ; 
The idle word that he'd wish back again. 

^'I've helped him to pen many a line for bread." 

It was thus he thought of his work. There had been 
caricatures, and rhymes, and many little children's books ; 
and then the lines written for his bread, which, except that 
they were written for Punch, was hardly undertaken with 
a more serious purpose. In all of it there was ample se- 
riousness, had he known it himself. What a tale of the 
restlessness, of the ambition, of the glory, of the misfort- 
unes of a great country is given in the ballads of Peter 
the French drummer ! Of that brain so full of fancy the 
pen had lightly written all the fancies. He did not know 
it when he was doing so, but with that word fancy he 
ha& described exactly the gift with which his brain was 
specially endowed. If a writer be accurate, or sonorous, 
or witty, or simply pathetic, he may, I think, gauge his 
own powers. He may do so after experience with some- 
thing of certainty. But fancy is a gift which the owner 
of it cannot measure, and the power of which, when he is 
using it, he cannot himself understand. There is the same 
lambent flame flickering over everything he did, even the 
dinner -cards and the^ picture pantomimes. He did not 
in the least know what he put into those things. So it 
was with his verses. It was only by degrees, when he was 
told of it by others, that he found that they too w^ere of 
infinite value to him in his profession. 

The Irish Sketch Book came out in 1843, in which he 
used, but only half used, the name of Michael Angelo Tit* 
marsh. He dedicates it to Charles Lever, and in signing 
the dedication gave his own name. '' Laying aside,'' ho 



i.j BIOGRAPHICAL. 25 

says, " for a moment the travelling title of Mr. Titmarsh, 
(at me acknowledge these favours in my own name, and 
subscribe myself, &c., &c., W. M. Thackeray." So he grad- 
ually fell into the declaration of his own identity. In 
1844 he made his journey to Turkey and Egypt — From 
Oornhill to Grand Cairo, as he called it, still using the old 
nom de plume, but again signing the dedication with his 
own name. It was now made to the captain of the vessel 
in which he encountered that famous white s*quall, in de- 
scribing which he has shown the wonderful power he had 
over words. 

In 1846 was commenced, in numbers, the novel which 
first made his name well known to the world. This was 
Vanity Fair, a work to which it is evident that he de- 
voled all his mind. Up to this time his writings had 
consisted of short contributions, chiefly of sketches, each 
intended to stand by itself in the periodical to which it 
was sent. Barry Lyndon had hitherto been the longest ; 
but that and Catherine Hays, and the Hoggarty Diamond, 
though stories continued through various numbers, had 
not as yet reached the dignity — or at any rate the length 
— of a three-volume novel. But of late novels had grown 
to be much longer than those of the old well-known 
measure. Dickens had stretched his to nearly double the 
length, and had published them in twenty numbers. The 
attempt had caught the public taste, and had been pre-em- 
inently successful. The nature of the tale as originated 
by him w^as altogether unlike that to which the readers of 
modern novels had been used. No plot, with an arranged 
catastrophe or denoument, was necessary. Some untying 
of the various knots of the narrative no doubt were expe- 
dient, but these were of the simplest kind, done with the 
view of giving an end to that which migiit otherwise be 

2* 



2i\ THACKERAY. Ichap. 

endless. The adventures of a Pickivick or a NicJclehy re- 
quired very little of a plot, and this mode of telling a sto- 
ry, which might be continued on through any number of 
pages, as long as the characters were interesting, met with 
approval. Thackeray, who had never depended much on 
his plot in the shorter tales which he had hitherto told, 
determined to adopt the same form in his first great work 
but with these changes :■ — That as the central character 
with Dickens had always been made beautiful with unnat- 
ural virtue — for who was ever so unselfish as Pickwick^ so 
manly and modest as Nicholas^ or so good a boy as Oli- 
ver? — so should his centre of interest be in every respect 
abnormally bad. 

As to Thackeray's reason for this — or rather as to that 
condition of mind which brought about this result — I 
will say something in a final chapter, in which I will en- 
deavor to describe the nature and effect of his work gen- 
erally. Here it will be necessary only to declare that, 
such was the choice he now made of a subject in his fi^st 
attempt to rise out of a world of small literary contribu- 
tions, into the more assured position of the author of a 
work of importance. We are aware that the monthly 
nurses of periodical literature did not at first smile on the 
effort. The proprietors of magazines did not see their 
way to undertake Vanity Fair, and the publishers are said 
to have generally looked shy upon it. At last it was 
brought out in numbers — twenty-four numbers instead of 
twenty, as with those by Dickens — under the guardian 
hands of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. This was com- 
pleted in 1848, and then it was that, at the age of thirty- 
seven, Thackeray first achieved for himself a name and 
repata'w^on through the country. Before this he had been 
known at Fraser'^s and at the Punch office. He was 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 27 

fenown at the Garrick Ckib, and had become individually 
popular among literary men in London. He had made 
many fast friends, and had been, as it were, found out by 
persons of distinction. But Jones, and Smith, and Robin- 
son, in Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, did not 
know him as they knew Dickens, Carlyle, Tennyson, and 
Macaulay — not as they knew Landseer, or Stan^feld, or ^ 
Turner ; not as they knew Macready, Charles Kean, or 
Miss Faucit. In that year, 1848, his name became com- 
mon in the memoirs of the time. On the 5th of June I 
find him dining with Macready, to meet Sir J. Wilson, 
I^anizzi, Landseer, and others. A few days afterwards 
Macreadv dined with him. '' Dined with Thackerav, met 
the Gordons, Kenyons, Procters, Reeve, Yilliers, Evans, 
Stansfeld, and saw Mrs. Sartoris and S. C. Dance, White, 
H. Goldsmid, in the evening." Again: *' Dined with For- 
ster, having called and taken up Brookfield, met Rintoul, 
Kenyon, Procter, Kinglake, Alfred Tennyson, Thackeray." 
Macready was very accurate in jotting down the names of 
those he entertained, who entertained him, or were en- 
tertained with him. Vanity Fair was coming out, and 
Thackeray had become one of the personages in literary 
society. In the January number of 1848 the Edinburgh 
Review had an article on Thackeray's works generally as 
they were then known. It purports to combine the Irish 
Sketch Boole ^ the Journey from Gornhill to Grand Cairo ^ 
and Vanity Fair as far as it had then gone ; but it does 
in truth deal chiefly with the literary merits of the latter. 
I will quote a passage from the article, as proving in re- 
gard to Thackeray's work an opinion which was well 
founded, and as telling the story of his life as far as it 
was then known : 

"Full many a valuable truth," says the reviewer, "has 
C 



28 THACKERAY. [chap. 

been sent undulating through the air by men who have 
lived and died unknown. At this moment the rising 
generation are supplied with the best of their mental 
aliment by writers whose names are a dead letter to the 
mass ; and among the most remarkable of these is Michael 
Angelo Titmarsh, alias William Makepeace Thackeray, 
author of the Irish Sketch Book^ of A Journey from 
Cornhill to Grand Cairo^ of Jeames's Diary ^ of The Snob 
Papers in Punchy of Vanity Fair^ (fee, &c. 

*' Mr. Thackeray is now about thirty -seven years of 
age, of a good family, and originally intended for the bar. 
He kept seven or eight terms at Cambridge, but left the 
university without taking a degree, with the view of be- 
coming an artist ; and we well remember, ten or twelve 
years ago, finding him day after day engaged in copying 
pictures in the Louvre, in order to qualify himself for 
his intended profession. It may be doubted, however, 
whether any degree of assiduity would have enabled him 
to excel in the money-making branches, for his talent was 
altogether of the Hogarth kind, and was principally 
remarkable in the pen-and-ink sketches of character and 
situation, which he dashed off for the amusement of his 
friends. At the end of tw^o or three years of desultory 
application he gave up the notion of becoming a painter, 
and took to literature. He set up and edited with marked 
ability a weekly journal, on the plan of The Athenaeum 
and Literary Gazette, but was unable to compete success- 
fully with such long-established rivals. He then became 
a regular man of letters — that is, he wrote for respectable 
magazines and new^spapers, until the attention attracted to 
his contributions in Fraser's Magazine and Punch em- 
boldened him to start on his own account, and risk an 
independent publication." Then follows a eulogistic and, 



1.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 29 

as I think, a correct criticism on the book as far as it had 
gone. There are a few remarks perhaps a little less 
eulogistic as to some of his minor writings, The Snob 
Papers in particular ; and at the end there is a statement 
with which I think we shall all now agree : "A writer 
with such a pen and pencil as Mr. Thackeray's is an 
acquisition of real and high value in our literature." 

The reviewer has done his work in a tone friendly to 
the author, whom he knew^ — as indeed it may be said 
that this little book will be written w^ith the same feeling 
— but the public has already recognised the truth of the 
review generally. There can be no doubt that Thackeray, 
though he had hitherto been but a contributor of anony- 
mous pieces to periodicals — to what is generally consid- 
ered as merely the ephemeral literature of the month — 
had already become effective on the tastes and morals of 
readers. Affectation of finery ; the vulgarity which apes 
good breeding but never approaches it ; dishonest gam- 
bling, whether with dice or with railway shares ; and that 
low taste for literary excitement which is gratified by 
mysterious murders and Old Bailey executions, had already 
received condign punishment from Yellowplush, Titmarsh, 
Fitzboodle, and Ikey Solomon. Under all those names 
Thackeray had plied his trade as a satirist. Though the 
truths, as the reviewer said, had been merely sent ui^ulat- 
ing through the air, they had already become effective. 

Thackeray had now become a personage — one of the 
recognised stars of the literary heaven of the day. It 
was an honour to know him ; and we may well believe 
that the givers of dinners were proud to have him among 

^ The article was written by Abraham Hayward, who is still with 
us, and was ijo doubt instigated by a desire to assist Thackeray in 
his struggle upwards, in which it succeeded. 



80 THACKERAY. [chap. 

their guests. He had opened his oyster with his pen — 
an achievement which he cannot be said to have accom- 
plished until Vanity Fair had come out. In inquiring 
about him from those who survive him, and knew him 
well in those days, I always hear the same account. " If 
I could only tell you the impromptu lines which fell from 
him !" " If I had only kept the drawings from his pen, 
which used to be chucked about as though they were 
worth nothing !" " If I could only remember the droll- 
eries !" Had they been kept, there might now be many 
volumes of these sketches, as to which the reviewer says 
that their talent was " altogether of the Hogarth kind." 
Could there be any kind more valuable? Like Hogarth, 
he could always make his picture tell his story; though, 
unlike Hogarth, he had not learned to draw. I have had 
sent to me for my inspection an album of drawings and 
letters, which, in the course of twenty years, from 1829 to 
1849, were despatched from Thackeray to his old friend 
Edward Fitzgerald. Looking at the wit displayed in the 
drawings, I feel inclined to say that had he persisted he 
would have been a second Hogarth. There is a series 
of ballet scenes, in which ** Flore et Zephyr " are the two 
chief performers, which for expression and drollery exceed 
anything that I know of the kind. The set in this book 
are ^thographs, which were published, but I do not re- 
member to have seen them elsewhere. There are still 
among us many who knew him well — Edward Fitzgerald 
and George Yenables, James Spedding and Kinglake, Mrs. 
Procter — the widow of Barry Cornwall, who loved him 
well — and Monckton Milnes, as he used to be, whose 
touching lines written just after Thackeray's death will 
close this volume, Frederick Pollock and Frank Fladgate, 
John Blackwood and William Russell — and they all tell 



i] BIOGRAPHICAL. 31 

the same story. Though he so rarely talked, as good 
talkers do, and was averse to sit down to work, there were 
always falling from his mouth and pen those little pearls. 
Among the friends who had been kindest and dearest to 
him in the days of his strugglings he once mentioned 
three to me — Matthew Higgins, or Jacob Omnium, as he 
was more popularly called ; William Stirling, who became 
Sir William Maxwell ; and Russell Sturgis, who is now the 
senior partner in the great house of Barings. Alas, only 
the last of these three is left among us ! Thackeray was 
a man of no great power of conversation. I doubt 
whether he ever shone in what is called general society. 
He was not a man to be valuable at a dinner-table as a 
good talker. It was when there were but two or three to- 
gether that he was happy himself and made others happy; 
and then it would rather be from some special piece of 
drollery that the joy of the moment would come, than 
from the discussion of ordinary topics. After so many 
years his old friends remember the fag-ends of the dog- 
gerel lines which used to drop from him without any 
effort on all occasions of jollity. And though he could 
be very sad — laden with melancholy, as I think must 
have been the case with him always — the feeling of fun 
w^ould quickly come to him, and the queer rhymes would 
be poured out as plentifully as the sketches were made. 
Here is a contribution which I find hanging in the mem- 
ory of an old friend, the serious nature of whose literary 
labours would certainly have driven such lines from his 
mind, had they not at the time caught fast hold of him : 

" In the romantic little town of Highbury 
My father kept a circulating library ; 
He followed in his youth that man immortal, who 
Conquered the Frenchmen on the plains of Waterloo. 



32 THACKERAY. [chap. 

Mamma was an inhabitant of Drogheda, 
Very good she was to darn and to embroider. 
In the famous island of Jamaica, 
For thirty years I've been a sugar-baker ; 
And here I sit, the Muses' 'appy vot'ry, 
A cultivatin' every kind of po'try." 

There may, perhaps, have been a mistake in a line, but 
the poem has been handed down with fair correctness over 
a period of forty years. He was always versifying. He 
once owed me five pounds seventeen shillings and six- 
pence, his share of a dinner bill at Richmond. He sent 
me a cheque for the amount in rhyme, giving the proper 
financial document on the second half of a sheet of note- 
paper. I gave the poem away as an autograph, and now 
forget the lines. This was all trifling, the reader will say. 
No doubt. Thackeray was always trifling, and yet always 
serious. In attempting to understand his character it is 
necessary for you to bear within your own mind the idea 
that he was always, within his own bosom, encountering 
melancholy with bufl^oonery, and meanness with satire. 
The very spirit of burlesque dwelt within him — a spirit 
which does not see the grand the less because of the trav- 
esties which it is always engendering. 

In his youthful — all but boyish — days in London, he 
delighted to " put himself up " at the Bedford, in Covent 
Garden. Then, in his early married days, he lived in Al- 
bion Street, and from thence went to Great Coram Street, 
till his household there was broken up by his wife's illness. 
He afterwards took lodgings in St. James's Chambers, and 
then a house in Young Street, Kensington. Here he lived 
from 1847, when he was achieving his great triumph with 
Vanity Fair^ down to 1853, when he removed to a house 
which he bought in Onslow Square. In Young Street 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 83 

there had come to lodge opposite to him an Irish gentle- 
man, who, on the part of his injured country, felt very 
angry with Thackeray. The Irish Sketch Book had not 
been complimentary, nor were the descriptions which 
Thackeray had given generally of Irishmen ; and there 
was extant an absurd idea that in his abominable heroine 
Catherine Hayes he had alluded to Miss Catherine Hayes, 
the Irish singer. Word was taken to Thackeray that this 
Irishman intended to come across the street and avenge 
his country on the calumniator's person. Thackeray im- 
mediately called upon the gentleman, and it is said that 
the visit was pleasant to both parties. There certainly 
was no blood shed. 

He had now succeeded — in 1848 — in making for him- 
self a standing as a man of letters, and an income. What 
was the extent of his income I have no means of saying ; 
nor is it a subject on which, as I think, inquiry should be 
made. But he was not satisfied with his position. He 
felt it to be precarious, and he was always thinking of 
what he owed to his two girls. That arhitrium populavis 
aurce on which he depended for his daily bread was not 
regarded by him with the confidence which it deserved. 
He did not, probably, know how firm was the hold he had 
obtained of the public ear. At any rate he was anxious, 
and endeavoured to secure for himself a permanent income 
in the public service. He had become by this time ac- 
quainted, probably intimate, with the Marquis of Clanri- 
carde, who was then Postmaster-General. In 1848 there 
fell a vacancy in the situation of Assistant-Secretary at the 
General Post-Office, and Lord Clanricarde either offered it 
to him or promised to give it to him. The Postmaster- 
General had the disposal of the place, but w^as not alto- 
gether free from control in the matter. When he made 



84 THACKERAY. [chap. 

known bis purpose at the Post-Office, he was met by an 
assurance from the officer next under him that the thing 
could not be done. The services were wanted of a man 
who had had experience in the Post-Office ; and, more- 
over, it was necessary that the feelings of other gentlemen 
should be consulted. Men who have been serving in an 
office many years do not like to see even a man of genius 
put over their heads. In fact, the office would have been 
up in arras at such an injustice. Lord Clanricarde, who 
in a matter of patronage was not scrupulous, was still a 
good-natured man and amenable. He attempted to be- 
friend his friend till he found that it was impossible, and 
then, with the best grace in the world, accepted the official 
nominee that was offered to him. 

It may be said that had Thackeray succeeded in that 
attempt he would surely have ruined himself. No man 
can be fit for the management and performance of special 
work who has learned nothing of it before his thirty- 
seventh year; and no man could hav^e been less so than 
Thackeray. There are men who, though they be not fit, 
are disposed to learn their lesson and make themselves as 
fit as possible. Such cannot be said to have been the case 
with this man. For the special duties which he would 
have been called upon to perform, consisting to a great 
extent of the maintenance of discipline over a large body 
of men, training is required, and the service would have 
suffered for awhile under any untried elderly tiro. An- 
other man might have put himself into harness. Thack- 
eray never would have done so. The details of his work 
after the first month would have been inexpressibly weari- 
some to him. To have gone into the city, and to have re- 
mained there every day from eleven till five, would have 
been all but impossible to him. He would not have done 



i.J BIOGRAPHICAL, B5 

it. And then lie would have been tormented by the feel- 
ing* that he was taking the pay and not doing the work. 
There is a belief current, not confined to a few, that a man 
may be a Government Secretary with a generous salary, 
and have nothing to do. The idea is something that re- 
mains to us from the old days of sinecures. If there be 
now remaining places so pleasant, or gentlemen so happy, 
I do not know them. Thackeray's notion of his future 
duties was probably very vague. He would have repudi- 
ated the notion that he was looking for a sinecure, but no 
doubt considered that the duties would be easy and light. 
It is not too much to assert, that he who could drop his 
pearls as I have said above, throwing them wide cast with- 
out an effort, would have found his work as Assistant- 
Secretary at the General Post-Office to be altogether too 
much for him. And then it was no doubt his intention 
to join literature with the Civil Service. He had been 
taught to regard the Civil Service as easy, and had count- 
ed upon himself as able to add it to his novels, and his 
work with his Punch brethren, and to his contributions 
generally to the literature of the day. He might have 
done so, could he have risen at five, and have sat at his 
private desk for three hours before he began his official 
routine at the public one. A capability for grinding, an 
aptitude for continuous task work, a disposition to sit in 
one's chair as though fixed to it by cobbler's wax, will en- 
able a man in the prime of life to go through the tedium 
of a second day's work every day ; but of all men Thack- 
eray was the last to bear the wearisome perseverance of 
such a life. Some more or less continuous attendance at 
his office he must have given, and with it would have gone 
Punch and the novels, the ballads, the burlesques, the es- 
says, the lectures, and the monthly papers full of mingled 



S6 THACKERAY. [chap. 

satire and tenderness, which have left to us that Thack- 
eray which we could so ill afford to lose out of the liter- 
ature of the nineteenth century. And there would have 
remained to the Civil Service the memory of a disgraceful 
job. 

He did not, however, give up the idea of the Civil Ser- 
vice. In a letter to his American friend, Mr. Reed, dated 
8th November, 1854, he says: *'Thc secretaryship of our 
Legation at Washington was vacant the other day, and I 
instantly asked for it ; but in the very kindest letter Lord 
Clarendon showed how the petition was impossible. First, 
the place was given away. Next, it would not be fair to 
appoint out of the service. But the first was an excellent 
reason — not a doubt of it." The validity of the second 
was probably not so apparent to him as it is to one who 
has himself waited long for promotion. " So if ever I 
come," he continues, " as I hope and trust to do this time 
jiext year, it must be in my own coat, and not the Queen's." 
Certainly in his own coat, and not in the Queen's, must 
Thackeray do anything by which he could mend his for- 
tune or make his reputation. There never was a man less 
fit for the Queen's coat. 

Nevertheless he held strong Ideas that much was due by 
the Queen's ministers to men of letters, and no doubt had 
his feelings of slighted merit, because no part of the debt 
due was paid to him. In 1850 he wrote a letter to The 
Morning Chronicle, which has since been republished, in 
which he alludes to certain opinions which had been put 
forth in The Examiner, " I don't see," he says, " why 
men of letters should not very cheerfully coincide with 
Mr. Examiner in accepting all the honours, places, and 
prizes which they can get. The amount of such as wdll 
be awarded to them will not, we may be pretty sure, im- 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 37 

poverish the country mucli ; and if it is the custom of the 
State to reward by money, or titles of honour, or stars and 
garters of any sort, individuals who do the country service 
— and if individuals are gratified at having * Sir ' or * My 
lord ' appended to .their names, or stars and ribbons hooked 
on to their coats and waistcoats, as men most undoubtedly 
are, and as their wives, families, and relations are — there 
can be no reason why men of letters should not have the 
chance, as well as men of the robe or the sword ; or why, 
if honour and money are good for one profession, they 
should not be good for another. No man in other call- 
ings thinks himself degraded by receiving a reward from 
his Government; nor, surely, need the literary man be 
more squeamish about pensions, and ribbons, and titles, 
than the ambassador, or general, or judge. Every Eu- 
ropean state but ours rewards its men of letters. The 
American Government gives them their full share of its 
small patronage ; and if Americans, why not Englishmen?" 
In this a great subject is discussed which would be too 
long for these pages ; but I think that there now exists a 
feeling that literature can herself, for herself, produce a 
rank as effective as any that a Queen's minister can be- 
stow. Surely it would be a repainting of the lily, an add- 
ing a flavour to the rose, a gilding of refined gold to create 
to-morrow a Lord Viscount Tennyson, a Baron Carlyle, or 
a Right Honourable Sir Robert Browning. And as for pay 
and pension, the less the better of it for any profession, 
unless so far as it may be payment made for work done. 
Then the higher the payment the better, in literature as 
in all other trades. It may be doubted even whether a 
special rank of its own be good for literature, such as that 
which is achieved by the happy possessors of the forty 
chairs of the Academy in France. Even though they had 



38 THACKERAY. [chap. 

an angel to make the choice — which they have not — that 
angel would do more harm to the excluded than good to 
the selected. 

Pendennis, Esmond, and The Newcomes followed Vani- 
ty Fair — not very quickly indeed, always at an interval of 
two years — in 1850, 1852, and 1854. As I purpose to 
devote a separate short chapter, or part of a chapter, to 
each of these, I need say nothing here of their special 
merits or demerits. Esmond was brouo-ht out as a whole. 
The others appeared in numbers. *' He lisped in numbers, 
for the numbers came." It is a mode of pronunciation in 
literature by no means very articulate, but easy of produc- 
tion and lucrative. But though easy it is seductive, and 
leads to idleness. An author by means of it can raise 
money and reputation on his book before -he has written 
it, and when the pang of parturition is over in regard to 
one part, he feels himself entitled to a period of ease be- 
cause the amount required for the next division will occu- 
py him only half the month. This to Thackeray was so 
alluring that the entirety of the final half was not always 
given to the task. His self-reproaches and bemoanings 
when sometimes the day for reappearing would come ter- 
ribly nigh, while yet the necessary amount of copy was 
far from being ready, were often very ludicrous and very 
sad — ludicrous because he never told of his distress with- 
out addino^ to it somethinor of ridicule which was irre- 
sistible, and sad because those who loved him best were 
aware that physical suffering had already fallen upon him, 
and that he was deterred by illness from the exercise of 
continuous energy. I myself did not know him till after 
the time now in question. My acquaintance with him 
was quite late in his life. But he has told me something 
of it, and I have heard from those who lived with him 



I.] BIOGRAPHIC2VL. 39 

bow continual were his sufferings. In 1854, he says in 
one of his letters to Mr. Reed — the only private letters 
of his which I know to have been published: "I am 
to-day just out of bed after another, about the dozenth, 
severe fit of spasms which I have had this year. My book 
would have been written but for them."" His work was 
always going on, but though not fuller of matter — that 
would have been almost impossible — would have been 
better in manner had he been delayed neither by suffer- 
ing nor by that palsying of the energies which suffering 
produces. 

This ought to have been the happiest period of his life, 
and should have been very happy. He had become fairly 
easy in his circumstances. He had succeeded in his work, 
and had made for himself a great name. He was fond of 
popularity, and especially anxious to be loved by a small 
circle of friends. These good things he had thoroughly 
achieved. Immediately after the publication of Vanity 
Fair he stood high among the literary heroes of his coun- 
try, and had endeared himself especially to a special knot 
of friends. His face and figure, his six feet four in height, 
with his flowing hair, already nearly gray, and his broken 
nose, his broad forehead and ample chest, encountered 
everywhere either love or respect ; and his daughters to 
him were all the world — the bairns of whom he says, at 
the end of the White Squall ballad : 

'* I thought, as day was breaking, 
My little girls were waking. 
And smiling, and making 
A prayer at home for me." 

Nothing could have been more tender or endearing than 
his relations with his children. But still there was a 



40 THACKERAY. [chap. 

skeleton in his cupboard — or rather two skeletons. His 
home had been broken up by his wife's malady, and his 
own health was shattered. When he was writing Peii- 
dennis, in 1849, he had a severe fever, and then those 
spasms came, of which four or five years afterwards he 
wrote to Mr. Reed. His home, as a home should be, was 
never restored to him — or his health. Just at that period 
of life at which a man generally makes a happy exchange 
in taking his wife's drawing-room in lieu of the smoking- 
room of his club, and assumes those domestic ways of 
living which are becoming and pleasant for matured years, 
that drawing-room and those domestic ways were closed 
against him. The children were then no more than ba- 
bies, as far afe society was concerned — things to kiss and 
play with, and make a home happy if they could only 
have had their mother with them. I have no doubt there 
were those who thought that Thackeray was very jolly 
under his adversity. Jolly he was. It was the manner 
of the man to be so — if that continual playfulness which 
was natural to him, lying over a melancholy which was as 
continual, be compatible with jollity. He laughed, and 
ate, and drank, and threw his pearls about with miraculous 
profusion. But I fancy that he was far from happy. I 
remember once, when I was young, receiving advice as to 
the manner in which I had better spend my evenings ; I 
was told that I ought to go home, drink tea, and read 
good books. It was excellent advice, but I found that the 
reading of good books in solitude was not an occupation 
congenial to me. It was so, I take it, with Thackeray. 
He did not like his lonely drawing-room, and went back 
to his life among the clubs by no means with content- 
ment. 

In 1853, Thackeray having then his own two girls to 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 41 

provide for, added a third to his family, and adopted Amy 
Crowe, the daughter of an old friend, and sister of the 
well-known artist now among* us. How it came to pass 
that she wanted a home, or that this special home suited 
her, it would be unnecessary here to tell even if I knew. 
But that he did give a home to this young lady, making 
her in all respects the same as another daughter, should 
be told of him. He was a man who liked to broaden his 
back for the support of others, and to make himself easy 
under such burdens. In 1862, she married a Thackeray 
cousin, a young officer with the Victoria Cross, Edward 
Thackeray, and went out to India, where she died. 

In 1854, the year in which The Newcomes came out, 
Thackeray had broken his close alliance with Punch. In 
December of that year there appeared from his pen an 
article in The Quarterly on John Leeches Pictures of Life 
and Character. It is a rambling discourse on picture-illus- 
tration in general, full of interest, but hardly good as a 
criticism — a portion of literary work for which he was 
not specially fitted. In it he tells us how Richard Doyle, 
the artist, had given up his work for Punchy not having 
been able, as a Roman Catholic, to endure the skits which, 
at that time, were appearing in one number after another 
against what was then called Papal aggression. The re- 
viewer — Thackeray himself — then tells us of the seces- 
sion of himself from the board of brethren. "Another 
member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the biographer of JeameSy 
the author of The Snob Papers^ resigned his functions, on 
account of Mr. Punch's assaults upon the present Emperor 
of the French nation, whose anger Jeames thought it was 
unpatriotic to arouse." How hard it must be for Cabinets 
to agree ! This man or that is sure to have some pet con- 
viction of his own, and the better the man the stronger 

3 



42 THACKERAY. [chap. 

the conviction ! Then the reviewer went on in favour of 
the artist of whom he w^as specially speaking, making a 
comparison which must at the time have been odious 
enough to some of the brethren. " There can be no 
blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's Cabinet John Leech 
is the right-hand man. Fancy a number of Punch with- 
out Leech's pictures ! What would you give for it V 
Then he breaks out into strong admiration of that one 
friend — perhaps with a little disregard as to the feelings 
of other friends.^ This Critical Review^ if it may prop- 
erly be so called — at any rate it is so named as now pub- 
lished — is to be found in our author's collected works, in 
the same volume with Catherine, It is there preceded by 
another, from The Westminster Review^ written fourteen 
years earlier, on The Genius of Cruikshank. This con- 
tains a descriptive catalogue of Cruikshank's works up to 
that period, and is interesting, from the piquant style in 
which it is written. I fancy that these two are the only 
efforts of the kind which be made — and in both he dealt 
with the two great caricaturists of his time, he himself be- 
ing, in the imaginative part of a caricaturist's work, equal 
in power to either of them. 

We now come to a phase of Thackeray's life in which 
he achieved a remarkable success, attributable rather to 
his fame as a writer than to any particular excellence in 
the art which he then exercised. He took upon himself 

^ For a week there existed at the Punch office a grudge against 
Thackeray in reference to this awkward question : " What would 
you give for your Punch without John Leech ?" Then he asked the 
confraternity to dinner — -more Thackerayano — and the confraternity 
came. Who can doubt but they were very jolly over the little blun- 
der? For years afterwards Thackeray was a guest at the well- 
known Punch dinner, though he was no longer one of the contributors. 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 43 

the functions of a lecturer, being moved to do so by a 
hope that he might thus provide a sum of money for the 
future sustenance of his children. No doubt he had been 
advised to this course, though I do not know from whom 
specially the advice may have come. Dickens had already 
considered the subject, but had not yet consented to read 
in public for money on his own account. John Forster, 
writing of the year 1846, says of Dickens and the then 
only thought-of exercise of a new profession : " I contin- 
ued to oppose, for reasons to be stated in their place, that 
which he had set his heart upon too strongly to abandon, 
and which I still can wish he had preferred to surrender 
with all that seemed to be its enormous gain." And 
again he says, speaking of a proposition which had been 
made to Dickens from the town of Bradford : *'At first 
this was entertained, but was abandoned, with some reluc- 
tance, upon the argument that to become publicly a reader 
must alter, without improving, his position publicly as a 
writer, and that it was a change to be justified only when 
the higher calling should have failed of the old success." 
The meaning of this was that the money to be made 
would be sweet, but that the descent to a profession 
which was considered to be lower than that of literature 
itself would carry with it something that was bitter. It 
was as though one who had sat on the Woolsack as Lord 
Chancellor should raise the question w^hether, for the sake 
of the income attached to it, he might, without disgrace, 
occupy a seat on a lower bench ; as though an architect 
should consider with himself the propriety of making his 
fortune as a contractor ; or the head of a college lower his 
dignity, while he increased his finances, by taking pupils. 
When such discussions arise, money generally carries the 
day — and should do so. When convinced that money 



44 THACKERAY. [chap. 

may be earned without disgrace, we ought to allow money 
to carry the day. When we talk of sordid gain and filthy 
lucre, we are generally hypocrites. If gains be sordid 
and lucre filthy, where is the priest, the lawyer, the doc- 
tor, or the man of literature, who does not wish for dirty 
hands ? An income, and the power of putting by some- 
thing for old age, something for those who are to come 
after, is the wholesome and acknowledged desire of all 
professional men. Thackeray having children, and being 
gifted with no power of making his money go very far, 
was anxious enough on the subject. We may say now, 
that had he confined himself to his pen, he would not 
have wanted while he lived, but would have left but little 
behind him. That he was anxious we have seen, by his 
attempts to subsidise his literary gains by a Government 
office. I cannot but think that had he undertaken public 
duties for which he was ill qualified, and received a salary 
which he could hardly have earned, he would have done 
less for his fame than by reading to the public. Whether 
he did that well or ill, he did it well enough for the mon- 
ey. The people who heard him, and who paid for their 
seats, were satisfied with their bargain — as they were also 
in the case of Dickens ; and I venture lo say that in be- 
coming publicly a reader, neither did Dickens or Thack- 
eray "alter his position as a writer," and ''that it was a 
change to be justified," though the success of the old call- 
ing had in no degree waned. What Thackeray did ena- 
bled him to leave a comfortable income for his children, 
and one earned honestly, with the full approval of the 
world around him. 

Having saturated his mind with the literature of Queen 
Anne's time — not probably, in the first instance, as a prep- 
aration for Esmond^ but in such a way as to induce him 



1.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 45 

to create an Esmond — lie took the authors whom he knew 
so well as the subject for his first series of lectures. He 
wrote The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century 
in 1851, while he must have been at work on Esmond ^ 
and first delivered the course at Willis's Rooms in that 
year. He afterwards went with these through many of 
our provincial towns, and then carried them to the United 
States, where he delivered them to large audiences in the 
winter of 1852 and 1853. Some few words as to the 
merits of the composition I will endeavour to say in an- 
other place. I myself never heard him lecture, and can 
therefore give no opinion of the performance. That which 
I have heard from others has been very various. It is, I 
think, certain that he had none of those wonderful gifts 
of elocution which made it a pleasure to listen to Dickens, 
whatever he read or whatever he said; nor had he that 
power of application by using which his rival taught him- 
self with accuracy the exact effect to be given to every 
word. The rendering of a piece by Dickens was com- 
posed as an oratorio is composed, and was then studied 
by heart as music is studied. And the piece was all giv- 
en by memory, without any looking at the notes or words. 
There was nothing of this with Thackeray. But the 
thing read was in itself of great interest to educated peo- 
ple. The words were given clearly, with sufficient into- 
nation for easy understanding, so that they who were will- 
ing to hear something from him felt on hearing that they 
had received full value for their money. At any rate, the 
lectures were successful. The money w^as made — and was 
kept. 

He came from his first trip to America to his new house 
in Onslow Square, and then published The Newcomes, 
This, too, w^as one of his great works, as to which I shall 



46 THACKERAY. [chap. 

have to speak hereafter. Then, having enjoyed his suc- 
cess in the first attempt to lecture, he prepared a second 
series. He never essayed the kind of reading which with 
Dickens became so wonderfully popular. Dickens recited 
portions from his well-known works. Thackeray wrote 
his lectures expressly for the purpose. They have since 
been added to his other literature, but they were prepared 
as lectures. The second series were The Four Georges, 
In a lucrative point of view they were even more success- 
ful than the first, the sum of money realised in the United 
States having been considerable. , In England they were 
less popular, even if better attended, the subject chosen 
having been distasteful to many. There arose the ques- 
tion whether too much freedom had not been taken with 
an office which, though it be no longer considered to be 
founded on divine right, is still as sacred as can be any- 
thing that is human. If there is to remain among us a 
sovereign, that sovereign, even though divested of political 
power, should be endowed with all that personal respect 
can give. If we wish ourselves to be high, we should treat 
that which is over us as high. And this should not de- 
pend altogether on personal character, though we know 
— as we have reason to know — how much may be added 
to the firmness of the feeling by personal merit. The re- 
spect of which we speak should, in the strongest degree, 
be a possession of the immediate occupant, and will natu- 
rally become dim — or perhaps be exaggerated — in regard 
to the past, as liistory or fable may tell of them. No one 
need hesitate to speak his mind of King John, let him 
be ever so strong a stickler for the privileges of majesty. 
But there are degrees of distance, and the throne of which 
w^e wish to preserve the dignity seems to be assailed when 
unmeasured evil is said of one wlio has sat tliere within 



r.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 47 

our own memory. There would seem to each of us to be 
a personal affront were a departed relative delineated with 
all those faults bv which we must own that even our near 
relatives have been made imperfect. It is a general con- 
viction as to this which so frequently turns the biography 
of those recently dead into mere eulogy. The fictitious 
charity which is enjoined by the de mortuis nil nisi honum 
banishes truth. The feeling of which I speak almost leads 
me at this moment to put down my pen. And, if so much 
be due to all subjects, is less due to a sovereign ? 

Considerations such as these diminished, I think, the 
popularity of Thackeray's second series of lectures ; or, 
rather, not their popularity, but the estimation in which 
they were held. On this head he defended himself more 
than once very gallantly, and had a great deal to say on 
his side of the question. " Suppose, for example, in Amer- 
ica — in Philadelphia or in New York — that I had spoken 
about George IV. in terms of praise and affected rever- 
ence, do you believe they would have hailed his name with 
cheers, or have heard it with anything of respect ?" And 
again : " We degrade our own honour and the sovereign's 
by unduly and unjustly praising him ; and the mere slav- 
erer and flatterer is one who comes forward, as it were, 
with flash notes, and pays with false coin his tribute to 
Caesar. I don't disguise that I feel somehow on my trial 
here for loyalty — for honest English feeling." This was 
said by Thackeray at a dinner at Edinburgh, in 1857, and 
shows how the matter rested on his mind. Thackeray's 
loyalty was no doubt true enough, but was mixed with 
but little of reverence. He was one who revered modesty 
and innocence rather than power, against which he had in 
the bottom of his heart something of republican tendency. 
His leaning was no doubt of the more manly kind. But 



48 THACKERAY. [chap. 

in what he said at Edinburgh he hardly hit the nail on 
the head. No one had suggested that he should have said 
good things of a king which he did not believe to be true. 
The question was whether it may not be well sometimes 
for us to hold our tongues. An American literary man, 
here in England, would not lecture on the morals of Ham- 
ilton, on the manners of General Jackson, on the general 
amenities of President Johnson. 

In 1857 Thackeray stood for Oxford, in the Liberal in- 
terest, in opposition to Mr. Cardwell. He had been in- 
duced to do this by his old friend Charles Neate, who him- 
self twice sat for Oxford, and died now not many months 
since. He polled 1,017 votes, against 1,070 by Mr. Card- 
well ; and was thus again saved by his good fortune from 
attempting to fill a situation in which he w^ould not have 
shone. There are, no doubt, many to whom a seat in Par- 
liament comes almost ^s the birthright of a well-born and 
well-to-do English gentleman. They go there with no 
more idea of shining than they do when they are elected 
to a first-class club — hardly with more idea of being use- 
ful. It is the thing to do, and the House of Commons is 
the place where a man ought to be — for a certain number 
of hours. Such men neither succeed nor fail, for nothing 
is expected of them. From such a one as Thackeray some- 
thing would have been expected, which would not have 
been forthcoming. He was too desultory for regular work 
— full of thought, but too vague for practical questions. 
He could not have endured to sit for two or three hours at 
a time with his hat over his eyes, pretending to listen, as 
is the duty of a good legislator. He was a man intolerant 
of tedium, and in the best of his time impatient of slow 
work. Nor, though his liberal feelings w^ere very strong, 
were his political convictions definite or accurate. He was 



T.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 49 

a man who mentally drank in much, feeding his fancy 
hourly with what he saw, what he heard, what he read, 
and then pouring it all out with an immense power of am- 
plification. But it would have been impossible for him to 
study and bring home to himself the various points of a 
complicated bill with a hundred and fifty clauses. In be- 
coming a man of letters, and taking that branch of letters 
which fell to him, he obtained the special place that was 
fitted for him. He was a round peg in a round hole. 
There was no other hole which he would have fitted near- 
ly so well. But he had his moment of political ambition, 
like others — and paid a thousand pounds for his attempt. 

In 1857 the first number of The Virginians appeared; 
and the last — the twenty-fourth — in October, 1859. This 
novel, as all my readers are aware, is a continuance of Es- 
mond^ and will be spoken of in its proper place. He w^as 
then forty-eight years old, very gray, with much of age 
upon him, which had come from suffering — age shown by 
dislike of activity and by an old man's way of thinking 
about many things — speaking as though the world were 
all behind him instead of before ; but still with a stalwart 
outward bearing, very erect in his gait, and a countenance 
peculiarly expressive and capable of much dignity. I speak 
of his personal appearance at this time, because it was then 
only that I became acquainted with him. In 1859 he un- 
dertook the last great work of his life, the editorship of 
The Cornhill Magazine^ a periodical set on foot by Mr. 
George Smith, of the house of Smith and Elder, with an 
amount of energy greater than has generally been bestowed 
upon such enterprises. It will be well remembered still 
how much The Cornhill was talked about and thought of 
before it first appeared, and how much of that thinking 
and talking was due to the fact that Mr. Thackeray w^as to 

3* 



50 THACKERAY. [ciuh 

edit it. Macmillan' s, I think, was the first of the shilling 
magazines, having preceded The Cornhill by a month, and 
it would ill become me, who have been a humble servant 
to each of them, to give to either any preference. But it 
must be acknowledged that a great deal was expected from 
The Cornhill^ and I think it will be confessed that it was 
the general opinion that a great deal was given by it. 
Thackeray had become big enough to give a special eclat 
to any literary exploit to which he attached himself. Since 
the days of The Constitutional he had fought his way up 
the ladder, and knew how to take his stand there with an 
assurance of success. "When it became known to the 
world of readers that a new magazine was to appear under 
Thackeray's editorship, the world of readers was quite sure 
that there would be a large sale. Of the first number over 
one hundred and ten thousand were sold, and of the sec- 
ond and third over one hundred thousand. It is in the 
nature of such things that the sale should fall off when 
the novelty is over. People believe that a new delight 
has come, a new joy for ever, and then find that the joy 
is not quite so perfect or enduring as they had expected. 
But the commencement of such enterprises may be taken 
as a measure of what will follow. The magazine, either 
by Thackeray's name or by its intrinsic merits — proba- 
bly by both — achieved a great success. My acquaintance 
with him grew from my having been one of his staff from 
the first. 

About two months before the opening day I wrote to 
him suggesting that he should accept from me a series of 
four short stories on which I was engaged. I got back a 
long letter in which he said nothing about my short sto- 
ries, but asking whether I could go to work at once and 
let him have a long novel, so that it might begin with the 



i.J BIOGRAPHICAL. 51 

first number. At the same time I heard from the pub- 
lisher, who suggested some interesting little details as to 
honorarium. The little details were very interesting, but 
absolutely no time was allowed to me. It was required 
that the first portion of my book should be in the printer's 
hands within a month. Now it was my theory — and ever 
sijtice this occurrence has been my practice — to see the 
end of my own work before the public should see the com- 
mencement.^ If I did this thing I must not only abandon 
my theory, but instantly contrive a story, or begin to write 
it before it was contrived. That was what I did, urged by 
the interestino; nature of the details. A novelist cannot 
always at the spur of the moment make his plot and cre- 
ate his characters who shall, with an arranged sequence 
of events, live with a certain degree of eventful decorum, 
through that portion of their lives which is to be portray- 
ed. I hesitated, but allowed myself to be allured to what 
I felt to be wrong, much dreading the event. How seldom 
is it that theories stand the wear and tear of practice ! I 
will not say that the story which came was good, but it 
was received with greater favour than any I had written 
before or have written since. I think that almost any- 
thing would have been then accepted coming under Thack- 
eray's editorship. 

I was astonished that work should be required in such 
haste, knowing that much preparation had been made, and 

^ I had begun an Irish story and half finished it, which would 
reach just the required length. Would that do ? I asked. I was civil- 
ly told that ray Irish story would no doubt be charming, but was not 
quite the thing that was wanted. Could I not begin a new one — ■ 
English — and if possible about clergymen '? The details were so in- 
teresting that had a couple of archbishops been demanded, I should 
have produced them. 



62 THACKERAY. [c«ap. 

that the service of almost any English novelist might have 
been obtained if asked for in due time. It v^^as my readi- 
ness that was needed, rather than any other gift ! The 
riddle was read to me after a time. Thackeray had him- 
self intended to begin with one of his own great novels, 
but had put it off till it was too late. Lovel the Widower 
was commenced at the same time with my own story, but 
Lovel the Widower was not substantial enough to appear 
as the principal joint at the banquet. Though your guests 
will undoubtedly dine off the little delicacies you provide 
for them^ there must be a heavy saddle of mutton among 
the viands prepared. I was the saddle of mutton, Thack- 
eray having omitted to get his joint down to the fire in time 
enough. My fitness lay in my capacity for quick roasting. 
It may be interesting to give a list of the contributors 
to the first number. My novel called Framley Parsonage 
came first. At this banquet the saddle of mutton was 
served before the delicacies. Then there was a paper by 
Sir John Bowrino; on The Chinese and Outer Barbarians. 
The commencing number of Lovel the Widower followed. 
George Lewes came next with his first chapters of Studies 
in Animal Life, Then there was Father Front's Inaugu- 
ration Ode, dedicated to the author of 'Vanity Fair — 
which should have led the way. I need hardly say that 
Father Prout was the Rev. F. Mahony. Then followed Our 
Volunteers, by Sir John Burgoyne ; A Man of Letters of the 
Last Generation, by Thornton Hunt ; The Search for Sir 
John Franklin, from a private journal of an oflScer of the 
Fox, now Sir Allen Young; and The First Morning of 
1860, by Mrs. Archer Clive. The number was concluded 
by the first of those Roundabout Papers by Thackeray 
himself, v^hich became so delightful a portion oi the litera- 
ture of The Cornhill Magazine, 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 53 

It would be out of my power, and hardly interesting, to 
give an entire list of those who wrote for The Cornhill 
under Thackeray's editorial direction. But I may name 
a few, to show how strong was the support which he re- 
ceived. Those who contributed to the first number I have 
named. Among those who followed were x\lfred Tenny- 
son, Jacob Omnium, Lord Houghton, William Russell, Mrs. 
Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Browning, Robert Bell, George Au- 
gustus Sala, Mrs. Gaskell, James Hinton, Mary Howitt, John 
Kaye, Charles Lever, Frederick Locker, Laurence Oliphant, 
John Ruskin, Fitzjames Stephen, T. A. Trollope, Henry 
Thompson, Herman Merivale, Adelaide Proctor, Matthew 
Arnold, the present Lord Lytton, and Miss Thackeray, now 
Mrs. Ritchie. Thackeray continued the editorship for two 
years and four months, namely, up to April, 1862 ; but, as 
all readers will remember, he continued to write for it till 
he died, the day before Christmas Day, in 1863. His last 
contribution was, I think, a paper written for and publish- 
ed in the November number, called '^Strange to say on 
Club PapeVy'' in which he vindicated Lord Clyde from the 
accusation of having taken the club stationery home with 
him. It was not a great subject, for no one could or did 
believe that the Field -Marshal had been guilty of any 
meanness ; but the handling of it has made it interesting, 
and his indignation has made it beautiful. 

The magazine was a great success, but justice compels 
me to say that Thackeray was not a good editor. As he 
would have been an indifferent civil servant, an indifferent 
member of Parliament, so was he perfunctory as an editor. 
It has sometimes been thought well to select a popular lit- 
erary man as an editor; first, because his name will at- 
tract, and then with an idea that he who can write well 
himself will be a competent judge of the wH^ngs of oth- 



54 THACKERAY. [chap., 

ers. The first may sell a magazine, but will hardly make 
it good ; and the second will not avail much, unless the 
editor so situated be patient enough to read what is sent 
to him. Of a magazine editor it is required that he should 
be patient, scrupulous, judicious, but above all things hard- 
hearted. I think it may be doubted whether Thackeray 
did bring himself to read the basketfuls of manuscripts 
■with which he was deluged, but he probably did, sooner or 
later, read the touching little private notes by which they 
were accompanied — the heartrending appeals, in which he 
was told that if this or the other little article could be 
accepted and paid for, a starving family might be saved 
from starvation for a month. He tells us how he felt on 
receiving such letters in one of his Roundabout Papers^ 
which he calls *' Thorns in the cushion^ " How am I to 
know," he says — " though to be sure I begin to know now 
— as I take the letters off the tray, which of those enve- 
lopes contains a real bona fide letter, and which a thorn ? 
One of the best invitations this year I mistook for a thorn 
letter, and kept it without opening." Then he gives the 
sample of a thorn letter. It is from a governess with 
a poem, and with a prayer for insertion and payment. 
"We have known better days, sir. I have a sick and 
widowed mother to maintain, and little brothers and sis- 
ters w^ho look to me." He could not stand this, and the 
money would be sent, out of his own pocket, though the 
poem might be — postponed, till happily it should be lost. 

From such material a good editor could not be made. 
Nor, in truth, do I think that he did much of the editorial 
work. I had once made an arrangement, not with Thack- 
eray, but with the proprietors, as to some little story. The 
story was sent back to me by Thackeray — rejected. Vir- 
ginibus puerisque ! That was the gist of his objection. 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 55 

There was a project in a gentleman's mind — as told in 
my story — to run away with a married woman ! Thack- 
eray's letter was very kind, very regretful — full of apology 
for such treatment to such a contributor. But — Virgini- 
bus puerisque ! I was quite sure that Thackeray had not 
taken the trouble to read the story himself. Some moral 
deputy had read it, and disapproving, no doubt properly, 
of the little project to which I have alluded, had incited- 
the editor to use his authority. That Thackeray had suf- 
fered when he wrote it was easy to see, fearing that he 
was giving pain to one he would fain have pleased. I 
wrote him a long letter in return, as full of drollery as I 
knew how to make it. In four or five days there came a 
reply in the same spirit — boiling over with fun. He had 
kept my letter by him, not daring to open it — as he says 
that he did with that eligible invitation. At last he had 
given it to one of his girls to examine — to see whether 
the thorn would be too sharp, whether I had turned upon 
him with reproaches. A man so susceptible, so prone to 
work by fits and starts, so unmethodical, could not have 
been a good editor. 

In 1862 he went into the new house which he had built 
for himself at Palace Green. I remember well, while this 
was still being built, how his friends used to discuss his 
imprudence in building it. Though he had done well 
with himself, and had made and was making a large in- 
come, was he entitled to live in a house the rent of which 
could not be counted at less than from ^yq; hundred to six 
hundred pounds a year? Before he had been there two 
years, he solved the question by dying — when the house 
was sold for two thousand pounds more than it had cost. 
He himself, in speaking of his project, was wont to declare 
tliat ho was laying out his money in the best way he could 



5fi THACKERAY. [chap. 

for the interest of his children ; and it turned out that 
he was right. 

In 1863 he died in the house which he had built, and 
at the period of his death was writing a new novel in 
numbers, called Denis Duval. In The Cornhill^ The Ad- 
ventures of Philip had appeared. This new enterprise 
was destined for commencement on 1st January, 1864, 
and, though the writer was gone, it kept its promise, as far 
as it went. Three numbers, and what might probably 
have been intended for half of a fourth, appeared. It 
may be seen, therefore, that he by no means held to my 
theory, that the author should see the end of his work be- 
fore the public sees the commencement. But neither did 
Dickens or Mrs. Gaskell, both of whom died with stories 
not completed, which, when they died, were in the course 
of publication. All the evidence goes against the neces- 
sity of such precaution. Nevertheless, were I giving ad- 
vice to a tiro in novel writing, I should recommend it. 

With the last chapter of Denis Duval was published in 
the magazine a set of notes on the book, taken for the 
most part from Thackeray's own papers, and showing how 
much collateral work he had given to the fabrication of 
his novel. No doubt in preparing other tales, especially 
Esmond^ a very large amount of such collateral labour was 
found necessary. He was a man who did very much of 
such work, delighting to deal in little historical incidents. 
They will be found in almost everything that he did, and 
I do not know that he was ever accused of gross mistakes. 
But I doubt whether on that account he should be called 
a laborious man. He could go down to Winchelsea, when 
writing about the little town, to see in which way the 
streets lay, and to provide himself with what we call local 
colouring. He could jot down the suggestions, as they 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 57 

came to. his mind, of his future story. There was an ir- 
regularity in such work which was to his taste. His very 
notes would be delightful to read, partaking of the nature 
of pearls when prepared only for his own use. But he 
could not bring himself to sit at his desk and do an allot- 
ted task day after day. He accomplished what must be 
considered as quite a sufficient life's work. He had about 
twenty-five years for the purpose, and that which he has 
left is an ample produce for the time. Nevertheless he 
was a man of fits and starts, who, not having been in his 
early years drilled to method, never achieved it in his career. 
He died on the day before Christmas Day, as has been 
said above, very suddenly, in his bed, early in the morning, 
in the fifty-third year of his life. To those who saw him 
about in the world there seemed to be no reason why he 
should not continue his career for the next twenty years. 
But those who knew him were so well aware of his con- 
stant sufferings, that, though they expected no sudden ca- 
tastrophe, they were hardly surprised when it came. His 
death was probably caused by those spasms of which he 
had complained ten years before, in his letter to Mr. Eeed. 
On the last day but one of the year, a crowd of sorrowing 
friends stood over his grave as he was laid to rest in Ken- 
sal Green ; and, as quickly afterwards as it could be 'exe- 
cuted, a bust to his memory was put up in Westminster 
Abbey. It is a fine work of art, by Marochetti ; but, as a 
likeness, is, I think, less effective than that which was mod- 
elled, and then given to the Garrick Club, by Durham, and 
has lately been put into marble, and now stands in the up- 
per vestibule of the club. Neither of them, in my opinion, 
give so accurate an idea of the man as a statuette in bronze, 
by Boehm, of which two or three copies were made. One 
of them is in my possession. It has been alleged, in refer- 



58 THACKERAY. [chap. 

ence to this, that there is something of a caricature in the 
lengthiness of the figure, in the two hands thrust into the 
trousers pockets, and in the protrusion of the chin. But 
this feeling has originated in the general idea that any 
face, or any figure, not made by the artist more beautiful 
or more graceful than the original is an injustice. The 
face must be smoother, the pose of the body must be more 
dignified, the proportions more perfect, than in the person 
represented, or satisfaction is not felt. Mr. Boehm has 
certainly not flattered, but, as far as my eye can judge, he 
has given the figure of the man exactly as he used to stand 
before us. I have a portrait of him in crayon, by Samuel 
Lawrence, as like, but hardly as natural. 

A little before his death Thackeray told me that he had 
then succeeded in replacing the fortune which he had lost 
as a young man. He had, in fact, done better, for he left 
an income of seven hundred and fifty pounds behind him. 

It has been said of Thackeray that he was a cynic. 
This has been said so generally, that the charge against 
him has become proverbial. This, stated barely, leaves 
one of two impressions on the mind, or perhaps the two 
together — that this cynicism was natural to his character 
and came out in his life, or that it is the characteristic of 
his writings. Of the nature of his writings generally, I 
will speak in the last chapter of this little book. As to 
his personal character as a cynic, I must find room to 
quote the following first stanzas of the little poem which 
appeared to his memory in Punchy from the pen of Shir- 
ley Brooks : 

He was a cynic ! By his life all wrought 

Of generous acts, mild words, and gentle ways ; 

His heart wide open to all kindly thought, 

His hand so quick to give, his tongue to praise ! 



I.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 59 

He was a cynic ! You might read it writ 

In that broad brow, crowned with its silver hair ; 

In those blue eyes, with childlike candour lit, 
In'that sweet smile his lips were wont to wear! 

He was a cynic ! By the love that clung 

About him from his children, friends, and kin ; 

By the sharp pain light pen and gossip tongue 
Wrought in him, chafing the soft heart within! 

The spirit and nature of the man have been caught here 
with absolute truth. A public man should of course be 
judged from his public work. If he wrote as a cynic — a 
point which I will not discuss here — it may be fair that 
he who is to be known as a writer should be so called. 
But, as a man, I protest that it would be hard to find an 
individual farther removed from the character. Over and 
outside his fancy, which was the gift which made him so 
remarkable — a certain feminine softness was the most re- 
markable trait about him. To give some immediate pleas- 
ure was the great delight of his life — a sovereign to a 
schoolboy, gloves to a girl, a dinner to a man, a compli- 
ment to a woman. His charity was overflowing. His 
generosity excessive. I heard once a story of woe from a 
man who was the dear friend of both of us. The gentle- 
man wanted a large sum of money instantly — something 
under two thousand pounds — had no natural friends who 
could provide it, but must go utterly to the wall without 
it. Pondering over this sad condition of things just re- 
vealed to me, I met Thackeray between the two mounted 
heroes at the Horse Guards, and told him the story. " Do 
you mean to say that I am to find two thousand pounds V 
he said, angrily, with some expletives. I explained that 
I had not even suggested the doing of anything — only 

that w^e might discuss the matter. Then there came over 
E 



60 THACKERAY. [criAP. l 

his face a peculiar smile, and a wink in his eye, and he 
whispered his suggestion, as though half ashamed of his 
meanness. *^ I'll go half," he said, " if anybody will do 
the rest." And he did go half, at a day or two's notice, 
though the gentleman was no more than simply a friend. 
I am glad to be able to add that the money was quickly 
repaid. I could tell various stories of the same kind, only 
that I lack space, and that they, if simply added one to 
the other, would lack interest. 

He was no cynic, but he was a satirist, and could now 
and then be a satirist in conversation, hitting very hard when 
he did hit. When he was in America, he met at dinner a 
literary gentlemen of high character, middle-aged, and most 
dignified deportment. The gentleman was one whose char- 
acter and acquirements stood very high — deservedly so — but 
who, in society, had that air of wrapping his toga around 
him, which adds, or is supposed to add, many cubits to a 
man's height. But he had a broken nose. At dinner he 
talked much of the tender passion, and did so in a man- 
ner which stirred up Thackeray's feeling of the ridiculous. 
'* What has the world come to," said Thackeray, out loud 
to the table, '^ when two broken-nosed old fogies like you 
und me sit talking about love to each other !" The gen- 
tleman was astounded, and could only sit wrapping his 
toga in silent dismay for the rest of the evening. Thack- 
eray then, as at other similar times, had no idea of giving 
pain, but when he saw a foible he put his foot upon it, and 
tried to stamp it out. 

Such is my idea of the man whom many call a cynic, 
but whom I reo;ard as one of the most soft-hearted of hu- 
man beings, sweet as Charity itself, who went about the 
w^orld dropping pearls, doing good, and never wilfully in- 
flicting: a wound. 



CHAPTER 11. 

fraser's magazine and punch. 

How Thackeray comraenced his connection with Fraser's 
Magazine I am unable to say. We know how he had 
come to London with a view to a literary career, and that 
he had at one time made an attempt to earn his bread as 
a correspondent to a newspaper from Paris. It is proba- 
ble that he became acquainted with the redoubtable Oliver 
Yorke, otherwise Dr. Maginn, or some of his staff, through 
the connection which he had thus opened with the press. 
He was not known, or at any rate he was unrecognized, by 
Fraser in January, 1835, in which month an amusing cat- 
alogue was given of the waiters then employed, with por- 
traits of them all seated at a symposium. I can trace no 
article to his pen before November, 1837, when the Yel- 
loivplush Correspondence was commenced, though it is 
hardly probable that he should have commenced with a 
work of so much pretension. There had been published 
a volume called My BooJc^ or the Anatomy of Conduct^ by 
John Skelton, and a very absurd book no doubt it was. 
We may presume that it contained maxims on etiquette, 
and that it was intended to convey in print those invalua- 
ble lessons on deportment w^hich, as Dickens has told us, 
were subsequently given by Mr. Turveydrop, in the acade- 
my kept by him for that purpose. Thackeray took this 



02 THACKERAY. [chap. 

as his foundation for the Fashionable Fax and Polite An- 
nygoats^ by Jeaines Yellowpkish, with which he commenced 
those repeated attacks against snobbism which he delight- 
ed to make through a considerable portion of his literary 
life. Oliver Yorke has himself added four or five pages 
of his own to Thackeray's lucubrations ; and with the sec- 
ond, and some future numbers, there appeared illustrations 
by Thackeray himself, illustrations at this time not having 
been common with the magazine. From all this I gather 
that the author was already held in estimation by Fra- 
ser^s confraternity. I remember well my own delight with 
Yellowphish at the time, and how I inquired who was 
the author. It was then that I first heard Thackeray's 
name. 

The Yellowplush Papers were continued through nine 
numbers. No further reference was made to Mr. Skelton 
and his book beyond that given at the beginning of the 
first number, and the satire is only shown by the attempt 
made by Yellowplush, the footman, to give his ideas gen- 
erally on the manners of noble life. The idea seems to be 
that a gentleman may, in heart and in action, be as vulgar 
as a footman. No doubt he may, but the chances are very 
much that he won't. But the virtue of the memoir does 
not consist in the lessons, but in the general drollery of 
the letters. The " orthogwaphy is inaccuwate," as a cer- 
tain person says in the memoirs — " so inaccuwate " as to 
take a positive study to *' compwehend " it ; but the joke, 
though old, is so handled as to be very amusing. Thack- 
eray ^oon rushes away from his criticisms on snobbism to 
other matters. There are the details of a card-sharping 
enterprise, in which we cannot but feel that we recognise 
something of the author's own experiences in the misfort- 
unes of Mr. Dawkins ; there is the Earl of Crab's, and then 



n.] FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 63 

the first of tliosc attacks which he was tempted to make 
on the absurdities of his brethren of letters, and the only- 
one which now has the appearance of having been ill-nat- 
ured. His first victims were Dr. Dionysius Lardner and 
Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton, as he was then. We can sur- 
render the doctor to the whip of the satirist ; and for 
"Sawedvvadgeorgeearllittnbulwig," as the novelist is made 
to call himself, we can well believe that he must himself 
have enjoyed the Yellowplush Memoirs if he ever re-read 
them in after-life. The speech in which he is made to 
dissuade the footman from joining the world of letters is 
so good that I will venture to insert it : *' Bullwig was vio- 
lently aifected; a tear stood in his glistening i. 'Yellow- 
plush,' says he, seizing my hand, 'you are right. Quit 
not your present occupation; black boots, clean knives, 
wear plush all your life, but don't turn literary man. Look 
at me. I am the first novelist in Europe. I have ranged 
with eagle wings over the wide regions of literature, and 
perched on every eminence in its turn. I have gazed with 
eagle eyes on the sun of philosophy, and fathomed the 
mysterious depths of the human mind. All languages are 
familiar to me, all thoughts are known to me, all men un- 
derstood by me. I have gathered wisdom from the hon- 
eyed lips of Plato, as we wandered in the gardens of the 
Academies ; wisdom, too, from the mouth of Job Johnson, 
as we smoked our backy in Seven Dials. Such must be 
the studies, and such is the mission, in this world of the 
Poet-Philosopher. But the knowledge is only emptiness ; 
the initiation is but misery ; the initiated a man shunned 
and banned by his fellows. Oh !' said Bullwig, clasping 
his hands, and throwing his fine i's up to the chandelier, 
' the curse of Pwomethus descends upon his wace. Wath 
and punishment pursue them from genewation to genewa- 



61 THACKERAY. [chap. 

tion ! Wo to genius, the heaven - scaler, the fire - stealer ! 
Wo and thrice-bitter desolation ! Earth is the wock on 
which Zeus, wemorseless, stwetches his withing wictim ; — 
men, the vultures that feed and fatten on him. Ai, ai ! it 
is agony eternal — gwoaning and solitawy despair ! And 
you, Yellowplush, would penetwate these mystewies ; you 
would waisc the awful veil, and stand in the twemendous 
Pwesence. Beware, as you value your peace, beware ! 
Withdwaw, wash Neophyte ! For heaven's sake ! O for 
heaven's sake !' — Here he looked round with agony ; — ' give 
me a glass of bwandy-and-water, for this clawet is begin- 
ning to disagwee with me.' " It was thus that Thackeray 
began that vein of satire on his contemporaries of which 
it may be said that the older he grew the more amusing 
it was, and at the same time less likely to hurt the feelings 
of the author satirised. 

The next tale of any length from Thackeray's pen, in 
the magazine, was that called Catherine^ which is the 
story taken fronv the life of a wretched woman called 
Catherine Hayes. It is certainly not pleasant reading, 
and was not written with a pleasant purpose. It assumes 
to have come from the pen of Ikey Solomon, of Horse- 
monger Lane, and its object is to show how disgusting 
w^ould be the records of thieves, cheats, and murderers if 
their doings and language were described according to 
their nature, instead of being handled in such a way as 
to create sympathy, and therefore imitation. Bulwer's 
Eugene Aram, Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard, and 
Dickens' Nancy were in his mind, and it was thus that 
he preached his sermon against the selection of such 
heroes and heroines by the novelists of the day. ''Be it 
granted," he says, in his epilogue, '' Solomon is dull ; but 
don't attack liis morality. He humbly submits that, in 



II.] FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 65 

his poem, no man shall mistake virtue for vice, no man 
shall allow a single sentiment of pity or admiration to 
enter his bosom for any character in the poem, it being 
from beginning to end a scene of unmixed rascality, per- 
formed by persons who never deviate into good feeling." 
The intention is intelligible enough, but such a story 
neither could have been written nor read — certainly not 
written by Thackeray, nor read by the ordinary reader of 
a first-class mao:azine — had he not been enabled to adorn 
it by infinite wit. Captain Brock, though a brave man, is 
certainly not described as an interesting or gallant soldier; 
but he is possessed of great resources. Captain Macshane, 
too, is a thorough blackguard ; but he is one with a dash 
of loyalty about him, so that the reader can almost sympa- 
thise with him, and is tempted to say that Ikey Solomon 
has not quite kept his promise. 

Catherine appeared in 1839 and 1840. In the latter 
of those years The Shabby Genteel story also came out. 
Then, in 1841, there followed The History of Samuel 
Titmarsh and the Great Hog gar ty Diamond^ illustrated 
6y Samuel's cousin, Michael Angelo. But though so an- 
nounced in Fraser, there were no illustrations, and those 
attached to the story in later editions are not taken from 
sketches by Thackeray. This, as far as I know, was the 
first use of the name Titmarsh, and seems to indicate 
some intention on the part of the author of creating a 
hoax as to two personages — one the writer and the other 
the illustrator. If it were so, he must soon have dropped 
the idea. In the last paragraph he has shaken off his 
cousin Michael. The main object of the story is to ex- 
pose the villany of bubble companies, and the danger they 
run who venture to have dealings with city matters which 
they do not understand. I cannot but think that he 

4 



66 THACKERAY. [chap. 

altered his mind and changed his purpose while he was 
writing it, actuated probably by that editorial monition 
as to its length. 

In 1842 were commenced The Confessions of George 
Fitz-Boodle, which were continued into 1843. I do not 
think that they attracted much attention, or that they 
have become peculiarly popular since. They are supposed 
to contain the reminiscences of a vouno-cr son, who moans 
over his poverty, complains of womankind generally, 
laughs at the world all round, and intersperses his pages 
with one or two excellent ballads. I quote one, written 
for the sake of affording a parody, with the parody along 
with it, because the two together give so strong an ex- 
ample of the condition of Thackeray's mind in regard to 
literary products. The " humbug " of everything, the 
pretence, the falseness of affected sentiment, the remote- 
ness of poetical pathos from the true condition of the 
average minds of men and women, struck him so strongly, 
that he sometimes allowed himself almost to feel — or at 
any rate, to say — that poetical expression, as being above 
nature, must be unnatural. He had declared to himself 
that all humbug was odious, and should be by him laughed 
down to the extent of his capacity. His Yellowplush, 
his Catherine Hayes, his Fitz-Boodle, his Barry Lyndon, 
and Becky Sharp, with many others of this kind, were 
all invented and treated for this purpose and after this 
fashion. I shall have to say more on the same subject 
when I come to The Snoh Papers. In this instance he 
wrote a very pretty ballad, The Willow Tree — so good 
that if left by itself it would create no idea of absurdity 
or extravagant pathos in the mind of the ordinary reader — 
simply that h^ might render his own work absurd by his 
own parody. 



II.] 



FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 



67 



THE WILLOW-TREE. 
No.L 

Know ye the willow-tree, 

Whose gray leaves quiver, 
Whispering gloomily 

To yon pale river ? 
Lady, at eventide 

Wander not near it ! 
They say its branches hide 

A sad lost spirit ! 

Once to the willow- tree 

A maid came fearful. 
Pale seemed her cheek to be, 

Her blue eye tearful. 
Soon as she saw the tree, 

Her steps moved fleeter. 
No one was there — ah me !— 

No one to meet her ! 



Quick beat her heart to hear 

The far bells' chime 
Toll from the chapel-tower 

The trysting-time. 
But the red sun went down 

In golden flame, 
And though she looked around, 

Yet no one came ! 

Presently came the night. 

Sadly to greet her — 
Moon in her silver light. 

Stars in their glitter. 
Then sank the moon away 

Umder the billow. 
Still wept the maid alone—- 

There by the willow ! 



THE WILLOW-TREE. 
No. II. 

Long by the willow-tree 
Vainly they sought her. 

Wild rang the mother's screams 
O'er the gray water. 

" Where is my lovely one ? 
Where is my daughter ? 

Rouse thee, sir constable — 

Rouse thee and look. 
Fisherman, bring your net, 

Boatman, your hook. 
Beat in the lily-beds, 

Dive in the brook." 

Vainly the constable 
Shouted and called her. 

Vainly the fisherman 
Beat the green alder. 

Vainly he threw the net. 
Never it hauled her ! 

Mother beside the fire 

Sat, her night-cap in ; 
Father in easy-chair. 

Gloomily napping ; 
W^hen at the window-sill 

Came a light tapping. 

And a pale countenance 

Looked through the casement. 
Loud beat the mother's heart, 

Sick with amazement. 
And at the vision which ^ 

Came to surprise her ! 
Shrieking in an agony — '• 

"Lor'! it's Elizar!" 



68 



THACKERAY. 



fcUAP. 



Through the long darkness, 

By the stream rolling, 
Hour after hour went on 

Tolling and tolling. 
Long was the darkness, 

Lonely and stilly. 
Shrill came the night wind. 

Piercing and chilly. 



Yes, 'twas Elizabeth ; — 

Yes, 'twas their girl ; 
Pale was her cheek, and her 

Hair out of curl. 
" Mother !" the loved one. 

Blushing exclaimed, 
" Let not your innocent 

Lizzy be blamed. 



Yesterday, going to Aunt 

Jones's to tea. 
Mother, dear mother, I 

Forgot the door-key ! 
And as the night was cold. 

And the way steep, 
Mrs. Jones kept me to 

Breakfast and sleep.'* 

Whether her pa and ma 

Fully believed her. 
That we shall never know. 

Stern they received her; 
And for the work of that 

Cruel, though short, night — 
Sent her to bed without 

Tea for a fortnight. 

Moral. 

Hey diddle diddlety. 
Cat and the fiddlety. 
Maidens of England take 
caution by she ! 
Let love and suicide 
Never tempt you aside. 
And always remember to take 
the door-key \ 



Mr. George Fitz-Boodle gave his name to other narra- 
tives beyond his ovtn Confessimis. A series of stories was 



Shrill blew the morning breeze. 

Biting and cold. 
Bleak peers the gray dawn 

Over the wold ! 
Bleak over moor and stream 

Looks the gray dawn. 
Gray with dishevelled hair. 
Still stands the willow there — 

The maid is gone ! 

Domine, Domine ! 
Sing we a litany — 
Sing for poor maiden-hearts 
broken and weary ; 
Sing we a litany. 
Wail we and weep we a 
wild miserere ! 



11.] ERASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. GO 

carried on by him in Fraser^ called Meri's Wives, contain- 
ing three : Bavenwing, Mr. and Mrs, Frank Berry, and 
Dennis Hoggarty" s Wife. The first chapter in Mr. and 
Mrs. Frank Berry describes *'The Fight at Slaughter 
House." Slaughter House, as Mr. Venables reminded us 
in the last chapter, was near Smithfield, in London — the 
school which afterwards became Grey Friars; and the 
fight between Biggs and Berry is the record of one which 
took place in the flesh when Thackeray was at the Charter 
House. But Mr. Fitz - Boodle's name was afterwards at- 
tached to a greater work than these, to a work so great 
that subsequent editors have thought him to be unworthy 
of the honour. In the January number, 1844, of Fraser''s 
Magazine, are commenced the Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, 
and the authorship is attributed to Mr. Fitz-Boodle. The 
title given in the magazine was The Luck of Barry Lyn- 
don : a Romance of the last Century. By Fitz-Boodle. 
In the collected edition of Thackeray's works the Memoirs 
are given as *^ Written by himself," and were, I presume, 
so brought out by Thackeray, after they had appeared in 
Fraser. Why Mr. George Fitz-Boodle should have been 
robbed of so great an honour I do not know. 

In imagination, language, construction, and general lit- 
erary capacity, Thackeray never did anything more re- 
markable than Barry Lyndon. I have quoted the words 
which he put into the mouth of Ikey Solomon, declaring 
that in the story which he has there told he has created 
nothing but disgust for the wicked characters he has pro- 
duced, and that he has *' used his humble endeavours to 
cause the public also to hate them." Here, in Barry Lyn- 
don, he has, probably unconsciously, acted in direct oppo- 
sition to his own principles. Barry Lyndon is as great a 
scoundrel as the mind of man ever conceived. He is one 



70 THACKERAY. [chap. 

who' might have taken as his motto Satan's words : '* Evil, 
be thou my good." And yet his story is so written that 
it is almost impossible not to entertain something of a 
friendlv feelino- for him. He tells his own adventures as a 
card - sharper, bully, and liar ; as a heartless wretch, who 
had neither love nor gratitude in his composition ; who 
had no sense even of loyalty ; who regarded gambling as 
the highest occupation to which a man could devote him- 
self, and fraud as always justified by success ; a man pos- 
sessed by all meannesses except cowardice. And the reader 
is so carried away by his frankness and energy as almost 
to rejoice when he succeeds, and to grieve with him when 
he is brought to the ground. 

The man is perfectly satisfied as to the reasonableness 
— I might almost say, as to the rectitude — of his own con- 
duct throughout. He is one of a decayed Irish family, 
that could boast of good blood. His father had obtained 
possession of the remnants of the property by turning 
Protestant, thus ousting the elder brother, who later on be- 
comes his nephew's confederate in gambling. The elder 
brother is true to the old religion, and as the law stood in 
the last century, the younger brother, by changing his re- 
ligion, was able to turn him out. Barry, when a boy, 
learns the slang and the gait of the debauched gentlemen 
of the day. He is specially proud of being a gentleman 
by birth and manners. He had been kidnapped, and made 
to serve as a common soldier, but boasts that he was at 
once fit for the occasion when enabled to show as a court 
gentleman. " I came to it at once," he says, " and as if I 
had never done anything else all my life. I had a gentle- 
man to wait upon me, a French friseur to dress my hair of 
a morning. I knew the taste of chocolate as by intuition 
almost, and could distinguish bet>veen the right Spanisli 



II.] ERASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 11 

and the French before I had been a week in my new posi- 
tion. I had rings on all my fingers and watches in both 
my fobs — canes, trinkets, and snuffboxes of all sorts. I 
had the finest natural taste for lace and china of any man 
I ever knew." 

To dress well, to wear a sword with a grace, to carry 
away his plunder with affected indifference, 'and to appear 
to be equally easy when he loses his last ducat, to be 
agreeable to women*, and to look like a gentleman — these 
are his accomplishments. In one place he rises to the 
height of a grand professor in the art of gambling, and 
£;ives his lessons with almost a noble air. " Play grandly, 
honourably. Be not, of course, cast down at losing ; but 
above all, be not eager at winning, as mean souls are." 
And he boasts of his accomplishments with so much elo- 
quence as to make the reader sure that he believes in 
them. He is quite pathetic over himself, and can describe 
with heartrending words the evils that befall him when 
others use against him successfully any of the arts which 
he practises himself. 

The marvel of the book is not so much that the hero 
should evidently think well of himself, as that the author 
should so tell his story as to appear to be altogether on 
the hero's side. In Catherine, the horrors described are 
most truly disgusting — so much that the story, though 
very clever, is not pleasant reading. The Memoirs of 
Barry Lyndon are very pleasant to read. There is noth- 
ing to shock or disgust. The style of narrative is exactly 
that which might be used as to the exploits of a man 
whom the author intended to represent as deserving of 
sympathy and praise — so that the reader is almost brought 
to sympathise. But I should be doing an injustice to 
Thackeray if I were to leave an impression that he had 



n THACKERAY. [chap. 

taught lessons tending to evil practice, sucli as he supposed 
to have been left by Jack Sheppard or Eugene Aram. 
No one will be tempted to undertake the life of a chevalier 
dHndustrie by reading the book, or be made to think that 
cheating at cards is either an agreeable or a profitable pro- 
fession. The following is excellent as a tirade in favour 
of gambling, coming from Redmond de Balibari, as he 
came to be called during his adventures abroad, but it will 
hardly persuade anyone to be a gambler : 

"We always played on parole with anybody — any per- 
son, that is, of honour and noble lineage. We never press- 
ed for our winnings, or declined to receive promissory 
notes in lieu of gold. But woe to the man who did not 
pay when the note became due! Redmond de Balibari 
was sure to wait upon him with his bill, and I promise 
you there were very few bad debts. On the contrary, 
o'entlemen were orrateful to us for our forbearance, and our 
character for honour stood unimpeached. In latter times, 
a vulgar national prejudice has chosen to cast a slur upon 
the character of men of honour engaged in the profession 
of play ; but I speak of the good old days of Europe, 
before the cowardice of the French aristocracy (in the 
shameful revolution, which sers^ed them right) brought 
discredit upon our order. They cry fie now upon men 
engaged in play ; but I should like to know how much 
more honourable their modes of livelihood are than ours. 
The broker of the Exchange, who bulls and bears, and 
buys and sells, and dabbles wqth lying loans, and trades 
upon state-secrets — what is he but a gamester ? The mer- 
chant who deals in teas and tallow, is he any better? His 
bales of dirty indigo are his dice, his cards come up every 
year instead of every ten minutes, and the sea is his green- 
table. You call the profession of the law an honourable 



ii.J FRASEE'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 73 

one, where a man will lie for any bidder — lie down pover- 
ty for the sake of a fee from wealth ; lie down right be- 
cause wrong is in his brief. You call a doctor an honour- 
able man — a swindling quack who does not believe in the 
nostrums which he prescribes, and takes your guinea for 
whispering in your ear that it is a fine morning. And 
yet, forsooth, a gallant man, who sits him down before the 
baize and challenges all comers, his money against theirs, 
his fortune against theirs, is proscribed by your modern 
moral world ! It is a conspiracy of the middle - class 
against gentlemen. It is only the shopkeeper cant which 
is to go down nowadays. I say that play was an institu- 
tion of chivalry. It has been wrecked along with other 
privileges of men of birth. When Seingalt engaged a 
man for six-and-thirty hours without leaving the table, do 
you think he showed no courage ? How have we had the 
best blood, and the brightest eyes too, of Europe throbbing 
round the table, as I and my uncle have held the cards 
and the bank against some terrible player, who was match- 
ing some thousands out of his millions against our all, 
which was there on the baize! When we engaged that 
daring Alexis Kossloffsky, and won seven thousand louis 
on a single coup, had we lost we should have been beggars 
the next day ; when he lost, he was only a village and a 
few hundred serfs in pawn the worse. When at Toeplitz 
the Duke of Courland brought fourteen lacqueys, each 
with four bags of florins, and challenged our bank to pla^y 
against the sealed bags, what did we ask ? * Sir,' said we, 
' we have but eighty thousand florins in bank, or two hun- 
dred thousand at three months. If your highness's bags 
do not contain more than eighty thousand we will meet 
you.' And we did ; and after eleven hours' play, in which 
our bank was at one time reduced to two hundred and 

4* 



74 THACKERAY. fcHAP. 

three ducats, we won seventeen thousand florins of him. 
Is this not something like boldness? Does this profession 
not require skill, and perseverance, and bravery ? Four 
crowned heads looked on at the game, and an imperial 
princess, when I turned up the ace of hearts and made 
Paroli, burst into tears. No man on the European Conti- 
nent held a higher position than Redmond Barry then ; 
and when the Duke of Courland lost, he was pleased to 
say that we had won nobly. And so we had, and spent 
nobly what we won." This is very grand, and is put as 
an eloquent man would put it who really wished to defend 
gambling. 

The rascal, of course, comes to a miserable end, but the 
tone of the narrative is continued throughout. He is 
brouo'ht to live at last with his old mother in the Fleet 
prison, on a wretched annuity of fifty pounds per annum, 
which she has saved out of the general wreck, and there 
he dies of delirium tremens. For an assumed tone of con- 
tinued irony, maintained through the long memoir of a 
life, never becoming tedious, never unnatural, astounding 
us rather by its naturalness, I know nothing equal to Bar- 
ry Lyndon, 

As one reads, one sometimes is struck by a conviction 
that this or the other writer has thoroughly liked the work 
on which he is engaged. There is a gusto about his 
passages, a liveliness in the language, a spring in the mo- 
tion of the words, an eagerness of description, a lilt, if I 
may so call it, in the progress of the narrative, which 
makes the reader feel that the author has himself greatly 
enjoyed what he has written. He has evidently gone on 
with his work without any sense of weariness or doubt ; 
and the words have come readily to him. So it has boon 
with Barry Lyndon. " My mind was filled full with those 



II.] ERASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. T5 

blackguards," Thackeray once said to a friend. It is easy 
enough to see that it was so. In the passage which I 
have above quoted, his mind was running over with the 
idea that a rascal might be so far gone in rascality as to 
be in love with his own trade. 

This was the last of Thackeray's long stories in Fraser. 
I have given by no means a complete catalogue of his 
contributions to the magazine, but I have perhaps men- 
tioned those which are best known. There were many 
short pieces which have now been collected in his works, 
silch as Little Travels and Roadside Sketches, and the Car- 
men Lilliense^ in which the poet is supposed to be detain- 
ed at Lille by want of money. There are others which I 
think are not to be found in the collected works, such as a 
Box of Novels hy Titmarsh, and Titmarsh in the Picture 
Galleries, After the name of Titmarsh had been once as- 
sumed it was generally used in the papers which he sent 
to Fraser. 

Thackeray's connection ^'lih. Punch began in 1843, and, 
MS far as I can learn, Miss Tichletohy s Lectures on English 
History was his first contribution. They, however, have 
not been found worthy of a place in the collected edition. 
His short pieces during a long period of his life were so 
numerous that to have brought them all together would 
have weighted his more important works with too great 
an amount of extraneous matter. The same lady. Miss 
Tickletoby, gave a series of lectures. There was The His- 
tory of the next French Revolution^ and The Wanderings 
of our Fat Contributor — the first of which is, and the 
latter is not, perpetuated in his works. Our old friend 
Jeames Yellowplush, or De la Pluche — for we cannot for 
a moment doubt that he is the same Jeames — is very pro- 
lific, and as excellent in his orthography, his sense, and 



•76 THACKERAY. [chap. 

satire, as ever. These papers began with The Lucky Spec- 
ulator. He lives in The Albany ; he hires a brougham ; 
and is devoted to Miss Emily Flimsey, the daughter of Sir 
George, who had been his master — to the great injury of 
poor Maryanne, the fellow-servant who had loved him in 
his kitchen days. Then there follows that wonderful bal- 
lad, Jeames of Backley Square, Upon this he writes an 
angry letter to Punch, dated from his chambers in The 
Albany : " Has a reglar suscriber to your amusing paper, 
I beg leaf to state that I should never have done so had I 
supposed that it was your 'abbit to igspose the mistaries 
of privit life, and to hinger the delligit feelings of umble 
individyouls like myself." He writes in his own defence, 
both as to Maryanne and to the share-dealing by which he 
had made his fortune ; and he ends with declaring his 
right to the position which he holds. *' You are corrict 
in stating that I am of hancient Normin fam'ly. This is 
more than Peal can say, to whomb I applied for a bar- 
netcy; but the primmier being of low igstraction, natrally 
stikles for his border." And the letter is sio^ned ** Fitz- 
James De la Pluche." Then follows his diary, beginning 
with a description of the way in which he rushed into 
Punch's office, declaring his misfortunes, when losses had 
come upon him. " I wish to be paid for my contribew- 
tions to your paper. Suckmstances is altered with me." 
Whereupon he gets a cheque upon Messrs. Pump and Aid- 
gate, and has himself carried away to new speculations. 
He leaves his diary behind him, and Punch surreptitiously 
publishes it. There is much in the diary which comes 
from Thackeray's very heart. Who does not remember 
his indignation against Lord Bareacres ? " I gave the old 
humbug a few shares out of my own pocket. * There, old 
Pride,' says I, ' I like to see you dov^n on your knees to a 



ii.J FEASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 11 

footraan. There, old Pomposity ! Take fifty pounds. I 
like to see you come cringing and begging for it !' When- 
ever I see him in a very public place, I take my change 
for my money. I digg him in the ribbs, or clap his pad- 
ded old shoulders. I call him ' Bareacres, my old brick,' 
and I see him wince. It does my 'art good." It does 
Thackeray's heart good to pour himself out in indignation 
against some imaginary Bareacres. He blows off his 
steam with such an eagerness that he forgets for a time, or 
nearly forgets, his cacography. Then there are " Jeames 
on Time Bargings," " Jeames on the Guage Question," 
" Mr. Jeames again." Of all our author's heroes Jeames 
is perhaps the most amusing. There is not much in that 
joke of bad spelling, and we should have been inclined to 
say beforehand, that Mrs. Malaprop had done it so well 
and so suflSciently, that no repetition of it would be re- 
ceived with great favour. Like other dishes, it depends 
upon the cooking. Jeames, with his " suckmstances," high 
or low, will be immortal. 

There were The Travels in London^ a long series of 
them ; and then PuncKs Prize Novelists ^ in which Thack- 
eray imitates the language and plots of Bulwer, Disraeli, 
Charles Lever, G. P. R. James, Mrs. Gore, and Cooper, the 
American. They are all excellent ; perhaps Codlingsby is 
the best. Mendoza, when he is fighting with the barge- 
man, or drinking with Codlingsby, or receiving Louis 
Philippe in his rooms, seems to have come direct from 
the pen of our Premier. Phil Fogerty's jump, and the 
younger and the elder horsemen, as they come riding into 
the story, one in his armour and the other with his feathers, 
have the very savour and tone of Lever and James ; but 
then the savour and the tone are not so piquant. I know 
nothing in the way of imitation to equal Codlingsby, if it 



^78 THACKERAY. [chap. 

be not The Tale of Drury Lane, by W. S. in the Rejected 
Addresses, of which it is said that Walter Scott declared 
that he must have written it himself. The scene between 
Dr. Franklin, Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and Tatua, 
the chief of the Nose -rings, as told in The Stars and 
Stripes, is perfect in its way, but it fails as being a carica- 
ture of Cooper. The caricaturist has been carried away 
beyond and above his model, by his own sense of fun. 

Of the ballads which appeared in Punch I will speak 
elsewhere, as I must give a separate short chapter to our 
author's power of versification ; but I must say a word of 
The Snob Paper's, which were at the time the most popu- 
lar and the best known of all Thackeray's contributions to 
Punch, I think that perhaps they were more charming, 
more piquant, more apparently true, when they came out 
one after another in tlie periodical, than they are now as 
collected together. I think that one at a time would be 
better than many. And I think that the first half in the 
long list of snobs would have been more manifestly snobs 
to us than they are now with the second half of the list 
appended. In fact, there are too many of them, till the 
reader is driven to tell himself that the meaning of it all 
is that Adam's family is from fii-st to last a family of 
snobs. " First," says Thackeray, in preface, " the world 
was made ; then, as a matter of course, snobs ; they exist- 
ed for years and years, and were no more known than 
America. But presently — ingens patebat tellus — the peo- 
ple became darkly aware that there w^as such a race. Not 
above five-and-twenty years since, a name, an expressive 
monosyllable, arose to designate that case. That name 
has spread over England like railroads subsequently ; snobs 
are known and recognised throughout an empire on which 
I am given to understand the sun never sets. Punch ap- 



il] FRASER'S magazine and punch. 79 

pears at the right season to chronicle their history ; and 
the individual comes forth to write that history in Punch. 

"I have — and for this gift I congratulate myself with 
a deep and abiding thankfulness — an eye for a snob. If 
the truthful is the beautiful, it is beautiful to study even 
the snobbish — to track snobs through history as certain 
little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles ; to sink shafts 
in society, and come upon rich veins of snob-ore. Snob- 
bishness is like Death, in a quotation from Horace, which 
I hope you never heard, ' beating with equal foot at poor 
men's doors, and kicking at the gates of emperors.' It is 
a great mistake to judge of snobs lightly, and think they 
exist among the lower classes merely. An immense per- 
centage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of 
this mortal life. You must not judge hastily or vulgarly 
of snobs ; to do so shows that you are yourself a snob. I 
myself have been taken for one." 

The state of Thackeray's mind when he commenced 
his delineations of snobbery is here accurately depicted. 
Written, as these papers were, for Punchy and written, as 
they were, by Thackeray, it was a necessity that every 
idea put forth should be given as a joke, and that the 
satire on society in general should be wrapped up in bur- 
lesque absurdity. But not the less eager and serious was 
his intention. When he tells us, at the end of the first 
chapter, of a certain Colonel Snobley, whom he met at 
" Bagnigge Wells," as he says, and with whom he was so 
disgusted that he determined to drive the man out of the 
house, we are well aware that he had met an offensive 
military gentleman — probably at Tunbridge. Gentlemen 
thus offensive, even though tamely offensive, were peculiar- 
ly offensive to him. We presume, by what follows, that 
this gentleman, ignorantly — for himself most unfortunate- 



80 THACKERAY. [chap. 

ly — spoke of Publicola. Thackeray was disgusted — dis- 
gusted that such a name should be lugged into ordinary 
conversation at all, and then that a man should talk about 
a name with which he was so little acquainted as not to 
know how to pronounce it. The man was therefore a 
snob, and ought to be put down ; in all which I think that 
Thackeray was unnecessarily hard on the man, and gave 
him too much importance. 

So it was with him in his whole intercourse with snobs 
— as he calls them. He saw something that was distaste- 
ful, and a man instantly became a snob in his estimation. 
" But you can draw," a man once said to him, there hav- 
ing been some discussion on the subject of Thackeray's 
art powers. The man meant no doubt to be civil, but 
meant also to imply that for the purpose needed the 
drawing was good enough — a matter on which he was 
competent to form an opinion. Thackeray instantly put 
the man down as a snob for flattering him. The little 
courtesies of the world and the little discourtesies became 
snobbish to him. A man could not wear his hat, or carry 
his umbrella, or mount his horse, without falling into some 
error of snobbism before his hypercritical eyes. St. Mi- 
chael would have carried his armour amiss, and St. Cecilia 
have been snobbish as she twanged her harp. 

I fancy that a policeman considers that every man in 
the street would be properly *' run in," if only all the truth 
about the man had been known. The tinker thinks that 
every pot is unsound. The cobbler doubts the stability 
of every shoe. So at last it grew to be the case with 
Thackeray. There was more hope that the city should 
be saved because of its ten just men, than for society, if 
society were to depend on ten who were not snobs. All 
this arose from the keenness of his vision into that which 



II.] FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 81 

was really mean. But that keenness became so aggravated 
by the intenseness of his search that the slightest speck 
of dust became to his eyes as a foul stain. Publicola, as 
we saw, damned one poor man to a wretched immortality, 
and another was called pitilessly over the coals because 
he had mixed a grain of flattery with a bushel of truth. 
Thackeray tells us that he was born to hunt out snobs, as 
certain dogs are trained to find trufiies. But we can im- 
agine that a dog, very energetic at producing trufiies, and 
not finding them as plentiful as his heart desired, might 
occasionally produce roots which were not genuine — might 
be carried on in his energies till to his senses every fungus- 
root became a truflSe. I think that there has been some- 
thing of this with our author's snob-hunting, and that his 
zeal was at last greater than his discrimination. 

The nature of the task which came upon him made this 
fault almost unavoidable. When a hit is made, say with 
a piece at a theatre, or with a set of illustrations, or with 
a series of papers on this or the other subject — when 
something of this kind has suited the taste of the mo- 
ment, and gratified the public, there is a natural inclina- 
tion on the part of those who are interested to continue 
that which has been found to be good. It pays and it 
pleases, and it seems to suit everybody. Then it is con- 
tinued usque ad nauseam. We see it in everything. When 
the king said he Kked partridges, partridges were served 
to him every day. The world was pleased with certain 
ridi^culous portraits of its big men. The big men were 
soon used up, and the little men had to be added. 

We can imagine that even Punch may occasionally be 
at a loss for subjects wherewith to delight its readers. In 
fact. The Snob Pajpers were too good to be brought to an 
end, and therefore there were foi*ty-five of them. A dozen 



82 THACKERAY. [chap. 

would have been better. As he himself says in his last 
paper, " for a mortal year we have been together flattering 
and abusing the human race." It was exactly that. Of 
course we know — everybody always knows — that a bad 
specimen of his order may be found in every division of 
society. There may be a snob king, a snob parson, a 
snob member of parliament, a snob grocer, tailor, gold- 
smith, and the like. But that is not what has been meant. 
We did not want a special satirist to tell us what we all 
knew before. Had snobbishness been divided for us into 
its various attributes and characteristics, rather than at- 
tributed to various classes, the end sought — the e:?q)osure, 
namely, of the evil — would have been better attained. 
The snobbishness of flattery, of falsehood, of cowardice, 
lying, time-serving, money-worship, would have been per- 
haps attacked to a better purpose than that of kings, 
priests, soldiers, merchants, or men of letters. The assault 
as made by Thackeray seems to have been made on the 
profession generally. 

The paper on clerical snobs is intended to be essentially 
generous, and is ended by an allusion to certain old cleri- 
cal friends which has a sweet tone of tenderness in it. 
"How should he who knows you, not respect you or your 
calling? May this pen never write a pennyworth again if 
it ever casts ridicule upon either." But in the mean time 
he has thrown his stone at the covetousness of bishops, 
because of certain Irish prelates who died rich many years 
before he wrote. The insinuation is that bishops gener- 
ally take more of the loaves and fishes than they ought, 
whereas the fact is that bishops' incomes are generally so 
insufficient for the requirements demanded of them, that 
a feeling prevails that a clergyman to be fit for a bishop 
ric should have a private income. He attacks the snol> 



II.] FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 83 

bishness of the universities, showing us how one class of 
young men consists of fellow-commoners, who wear lace 
and drink wine with their meals, and another class con- 
sists of sizars, or servitors, who wear badges, as being poor, 
and are never allowed to take their food with their fellow- 
students. That arrangements fit for past times are not fit 
for these is true enough. Consequently, they should grad- 
ually be changed, and from day to day are changed. But 
there is no snobbishness in this. Was the fellow-com- 
moner a snob when he acted in accordance with the cus- 
tom of his rank and standing? or the sizar who accepted 
aid in achieving that education which he could not have 
got without it? or the tutor of the college, who carried 
out the rules entrusted to him ? There are two military 
snobs, Rag and Famish. One is a swindler, and the other 
a debauched young idiot. No doubt they are both snobs, 
and one has been, while the other is, an officer. But there 
is, I think, not an unfairness so much as an absence of 
intuition, in attaching to soldiers especially two vices to 
which all classes are open. Rag was a gambling snob, and 
Famish a drunken snob ; but they were not specially mili- 
tary snobs. There is a chapter devoted to dinner-giving 
snobs, in which I think the doctrine laid down will not 
hold water, and therefore that the snobbism imputed is 
not proved. '' Your usual style of meal," says the satirist 
— " that is plenteous, comfortable, and in its perfection 
— should be that to which you welcome your friends." 
Then there is something said about the ''Brummagem 
plate pomp," and we are told that it is right that dukes 
should give grand dinners, but that we — of the middle 
class — should entertain our friends with the simplicity 
which is customary with us. In all this there is, I think, 
a mistake. The duke gives a grand dinner because he 



84 THACKERAY. [cha?. 

thinks his friends will like it ; sitting down when alone 
with the duchess, we may suppose, with a retinue and 
grandeur less than that which is arrayed for gala occa- 
sions. So is it with Mr. Jones, who is no snob because he 
provides a costly dinner — if he can afford it. He does it 
because he thinks his friends will like it. It may be that 
the grand dinner is a bore — and that the leg of mutton, 
with plenty of gravy and potatoes all hot, would be nicer. 
I generally prefer the leg of mutton myself. But I do 
not think that snobbery is involved in the other. A man, 
no doubt, may be a snob in giving a dinner. I am not a 
snob because for the occasion I eke out my own dozen 
silver forks with plated ware ; but if I make believe that 
my plated ware is true silver, then I am a snob. 

In that matter of association with our betters — we will 
for the moment presume that gentlemen and ladies with 
titles or great wealth are our betters — great and delicate 
questions arise as to what is snobbery and what is not, in 
speaking of which Thackeray becomes very indignant, and 
explains the intensity of his feelings as thoroughly by a, 
charming little picture as by his words. It is a picture of 
Queen Elizabeth as she is about to trample with disdain 
on the coat which that snob Raleigh is throwing for her 
use on the mud before her. This is intended to typify 
the low parasite nature of the Englishman which has 
been described in the previous page or two. "And of 
these calm moralists" — it matters not for our present pur- 
pose who were the moralists in question—" is there one, I 
wonder, whose heart would not throb with pleasure if he 
could be seen walking arm-in-arm with a couple of dukes 
down Pall Mall ? No ; it is impossible, in our condition 
of society, not to be sometimes a snob." And again; 
" How should it be otherwise in a country where lord* 



II.] FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 85 

olatry is part of our creed, and where our children are 
brought up to respect the * Peerage ' as the Englishman's 
second Bible?" Then follows the wonderfully graphic 
picture of Queen Elizabeth and Raleigh. 

In all this Thackeray has been carried away from the 
truth by. his hatred for a certain meanness of which there 
are no doubt examples enough. As for Raleigh, I think 
we have always sympathised with the young man, instead 
of despising him, because he felt on the impulse of the 
moment that nothing was too good for the woman and 
the queen combined. The idea of getting something in 
return for his coat could hardly have come so quick to 
him as that impulse in favour of royalty and womanhood. 
If one of us to-day should see the queen passing, would he 
not raise his hat, and assume, unconsciously, something of 
an altered demeanour because of his reverence for majesty? 
In doing so he would have no mean desire of getting any- 
thing. The throne and its occupant are to him honourable, 
and he honours them. There is surely no greater mistake 
than to suppose that reverence is snobbishness. I meet a 
great man in the street, and some chance having brought 
me to his knowledge, he stops and says a word to me. 
Am I a snob because I feel myself to be graced by his no- 
tice? Surely not. And if his acquaintance goes further 
and he asks me to dinner, am I not entitled so far to think 
well of myself because I have been found worthy of his 
society ? 

They who have raised themselves in the world, and 
they, too, whose position has enabled them to receive all 
that estimation can give, all that society can furnish, all 
that intercourse with the great can give, are more likely to 
be pleasant companions than they who have been less for- 
tunate. That picture of two companion dukes in Pall 



86 THACKERAY. [char 

Mall is too gorgeous for human eye to endure. A man 
would be scorched to cinders by so much light, as he 
would be crushed by a sack of sovereigns even though he 
might be allowed to have them if he could carry them 
away. But there can be no doubt that a peer taken at 
random as a companion would be preferable to a clerk 
from a counting-house — taken at random. The clerk 
might turn out a scholar on your hands, and the peer no 
better than a poor spendthrift; but the chances are the 
other way. 

A tuft-hunter is a snob, a parasite is a snob, the man 
who allows the manhood within him to be awed by a cor- 
onet is a snob. The man who worships mere wealth is a 
snob. But so also is he who, in fear lest he should be 
called a snob, is afraid to seek the acquaintance — or if it 
come to speak of the acquaintance — of those whose ac- 
quaintance is manifestly desirable. In all this I feel that 
Thackeray was carried beyond the truth by his intense de- 
sire to put down what is mean. 

It is in truth well for us all to know what constitutes 
snobbism, and I think that Thackeray, had he not been 
driven to dilution and dilatation, could have told us. If 
you will keep your hands from picking and stealing, and 
your tongue from evil speaking, lying, and slandering, you 
will not be a snob. The lesson seems to be simple, and 
perhaps a little trite, but if you look into it, it will be 
found to contain nearly all that is necessary. 

But the excellence of each individual picture as it is 
drawn is not the less striking because there may be found 
some fault with the series as a whole. What can excel 
the telling of the story of Captain Shindy at his club — 
which is, I must own, as true as it is graphic? Captain 
Shindy is a real snob. "'Look at it, sir; is it cooked? 



li.] FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 87 

Smell it, sir. Is it meat fit for a gentleman V he roars out 
to the steward, who stands trembling before him, and who 
in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has 
just had three from the same loin." The telling as re- 
gards Captain Shindy is excellent, but the sidelong at- 
tack upon the episcopate is cruel. "All the waiters in the 
club are huddled round the captain's mutton-chop. He 
roars out the most horrible curses at John for not bring- 
ing the pickles. He utters the most dreadful oaths be- 
cause Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey sauce. 
Peter comes tumbling with the water -jug over Jeames, 
who is bringing the ^ glittering canisters with bread.' 
^ * * ^ ^ ^ ^ 

" Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in 
dingy lodgings somewhere, waited upon by a charity girl 
in pattens." 

The visit to Castle Carabas, and the housekeeper's de- 
scription of the wonders of the family mansion, is as good. 
" ' The Side Entrance and 'All,' says the housekeeper. 
* The halligator hover the mantelpiece was brought home 
by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when a cap ting with Lord Han- 
son. The harms on the cheers is the harms of the Cara- 
bas family. The great 'all is seventy feet in lenth, fifty- 
six in breath, and thirty-eight feet 'igh. The carvings of 
the chimlies, representing the buth of Venus and 'Ercules 
and 'Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most famous sculpt- 
ure of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, 
represents Painting, Harchitecture, and Music — the naked 
female figure with the barrel-organ — introducing George, 
first Lord Carabas, to the Temple of the Muses. The win- 
der ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor is Patago- 
nian marble ; and the chandelier in the centre was pre- 
sented to Lionel, second marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, 



88 THACKERAY. [chap. h. 

whose 'ead was cut hoff in the French Revohition. We 
now henter the South Gallery," etc., etc. All of which is 
very good fun, with a dash of truth in it also as to the 
snobbery — only in this it will be necessary to be quite 
sure where the snobbery lies. If my Lord Carabas has a 
" buth of Venus," beautiful for all eyes to see, there is no 
snobbery, only good-nature, in the showing it ; nor is there 
snobbery in going to see it, if a beautiful ** buth of Ve- 
nus" has charms for you. If you merely want to see the 
inside of a lord's house, and the lord is puffed up with the 
pride of showing his, then there will be two snobs. 

Of all those papers it may be said that each has that 
quality of a pearl about it which in the previous chapter 
I endeavoured to explain. In each some little point is 
made in excellent language, so as to charm by its neatness, 
incision, and drollery. But The Snoh Papers had better 
be read separately, and not taken in the lump. 

Thackeray ceased to write for Punch in 1852, either en- 
tirely or almost so. 



CHAPTER III. 



VANITY FAIR. 



Something has been said, in the biographical chapter, t>i 
the way in which Vanity Fair was produced, and of the 
period in the author's life in which it was written. He 
had become famous — to a limited extent — by the exqui- 
site nature of his contributions to periodicals ; but he de- 
sired to do something larger, something greater, some- 
thing, perhaps, less ephemeral. For though Barry Lyn- 
don and others have not proved to be ephemeral, it was 
thus that he regarded them. In this spirit he went to 
work and wrote Vanity Fair, 

It may be as well to speak first of the faults w^hich 
were attributed to it. It was said that the good people 
were all fools, and that the clever people were all knaves. 
When the critics — the talking critics as well as the wTit- 
ing critics — began to discuss Vanity Fair, there had al- 
ready grown up a feeling as to Thackeray as an author — 
that he was one who had taken up the business of castiga- 
ting the vices of the world. Scott had dealt with the he- 
roics, whether displayed in his Flora Maclvors or Meg 
Merrilieses, in his Ivanhoes or Ochil trees. Miss Edge- 
worth had been moral ; Miss Austen conventional ; Bulwer 
had been poetical and sentimental; Marryatt and Lever 
had been funny and pugnacious, always with a dash of 

5 



90 , THACKERAY. [ciiai\ 

gallantry, displaying funny naval and funny military life ; 
and Dickens had already become great in painting the 
virtues of the lower orders. But by all these some kind 
of virtue had been sung, though it might be only the vir- 
tue of riding a horse or fighting a duel. Even Eugene 
Aram and Jack Sheppard, with whom Thackeray found so 
much fault, were intended to be fine fellows, though they 
broke into houses and committed murders. The primary 
object of all those writers was to create an interest by ex- 
citing sympathy. To enhance our sympathy personages 
were introduced who were very vile indeed — as Bucklaw, 
in the guise of a lover, to heighten our feelings for Ra- 
venswood and Lucy ; as Wild, as a thief-taker, to make us 
more anxious for the saving of Jack ; as Ralph Nickleby, 
to pile up the pity for his niece Kate. But each of these 
novelists might have appropriately begun with an Arma 
virumque cano. The song was to be of something god- 
like — even with a Peter Simple.* With Thackeray it had 
been altogether different. Alas, ajas! the meanness of 
human wishes ; the poorness of human results ! That had 
been his tone. There can be no doubt that the heroic 
had appeared contemptible to him, as being untrue. The 
girl who had deceived her papa and mamma seemed more 
probable to him than she who perished under the willow- 
tree from sheer love — as given in the last chapter. Why 
sing songs that are false? Why tell of Lucy Ashtons and 
Kate Nicklebys, when pretty girls, let them be ever so 
beautiful, can be silly and sly ? Why pour philosophy out 
of the mouth of a fashionable young gentleman like Pel- 
ham, seeing that young gentlemen of that sort rarely, or 
we may say never, talk after that fashion ? W^hy make a 
house-breaker a gallant charming young fellow, the truth 
being that house-breakers as a rule are as objectionable in 



;;i.J VANITY FAIR. lil 

their manners as they are in their morals? Thackeray's 
mind had in truth worked in this way, and he had become 
a satirist. That had been all very well for Fraser and 
Punch ; but when his satire was continued through a long 
novel, in twenty-four parts, readers — who do in truth like 
the heroic better than the wicked — began to declare that 
this writer was no novelist, but only a cynic. 

Thence the question arises what a novel should be — 
which I will endeavour to discuss very shortly in a later 
chapter. But this special fault was certainly found with 
Vanity Fair at the time. Heroines should not only be 
beautiful, but should be endowed also with a quasi celestial 
grace — grace of dignity, propriety, and reticence. A her- 
oine should hardly want to be married, the arrangement 
being almost too mundane — and, should she be brought 
to consent to undergo such bond, because of its acknowl- 
edged utility, it should be at some period so distant as 
hardly to present itself to the mind as a reality. Eating 
and drinking should be altogether indifferent to her, and 
her clothes should be picturesque rather, than smart, and 
that from accident rather than design. Thackeray's 
Amelia does not at all come up to the description here 
given. She is proud of having a lover, constantly declar- 
ing to herself and to others that he is " the greatest and 
the best of men" — whereas the young gentleman is, in 
truth, a very little man. She is not at all indifferent as to 
her finery, nor, as we see incidentally, to enjoying her sup- 
'pers at Vauxhall. She is anxious to be married — and as 
soon as possible. A hero, too, should be dignified and of 
a noble presence ; a man who, though he may be as poor 
as Nicholas Mekleby, should nevertheless be beautiful on 
all occasions, and never deficient in readiness, address, or 

•self-assertion." Va^Hy Fair is specially declared by the 
G 



92 THACKERAY. [chap. 

author to be '' a novel without a hero," and therefore we 
have hardly a right to complain of deficiency of heroic 
conduct in any of the male characters. But Captain Dob- 
bin doe^ become the hero, and is deficient. Why was he 
called Dobbin, except to make him ridiculous? Why is 
he so shamefully ugly, so shy, so awkward ? W^hy was he 
the son of a grocer? Thackeray in so depicting him was 
determined to run counter to the recognised taste of novel 
readers. And then again there was the feeling of another 
great fault. Let there be the virtuous in a novel and let 
there be the vicious, the dignified and the undignified, the 
sublime and the ridiculous — only let the virtuous, the dig- 
nified, and the sublime be in the ascendant. Edith Bellen- 
den, and Lord Evandale, and Morton himself would be too 
s!5tilted, were they not enlivened by Mause, and Cuddie, and 
Poundtext. But here, in this novel, the vicious and the 
absurd have been made to be of more importance than the 
good and the noble. Becky Sharp and Rawdon Crawley 
are the real heroine and hero of the story. It is with 
them that the reader is called upon to interest himself. It 
is of them th^^t he will think when he is reading the book. 
It is by them that he will judge the book when he has 
read it. There was no doubt a feeling with the public 
that though satire may be very well in its place, it should 
not be made the backbone of a work so long and so im- 
portant as this. A short story such as Catherine or Barry 
Lyndon might be pronounced to have been called for by 
the iniquities of an outside world; but this seemed to 
the readers to have been addressed almost to themselves. 
Now men and women like to be painted as Titian would 
paint them, or Raffaelle — not as Rembrandt, or even 
Rubens. 

AYhether the ideal or the real is the best form of a 



III.] VANITY FAIR, > 93 

novel may be questioned, but there can be no doubt that 
as there are novelists who cannot descend from the bright 
heaven of the imagination to walk with their feet upon 
the earth, so there are others to whom it is not given to 
soar among clouds. The reader must please himself, and 
make his selection if he cannot enjoy both. There are 
many who are carried into a heaven of pathos by the woes 
of a Master of Ravenswood, who fail altogether to be 
touched by the enduring constancy of a Dobbin. There 
are others — and I will not say but they may enjoy the 
keenest delight which literature can give — who canr.ot 
employ their minds on fiction unless it be conveyed in po- 
etry. With Thackeray it was essential that the represen- 
tations made by him should be, to his own thinking, life- 
like. A Dobbin seemed to him to be such a one as might 
probably be met with in the world, whereas to his think- 
ing a Ravenswood was simply a creature of the imagina- 
tion. He would have said of such, as we would say of 
female faces by Raffaelle, that women would like to be 
like them, but are not like them. Men might like to 
be like Ravenswood, and women may dream of men so 
formed and constituted, but such men do not exist. Dob- 
bins do, and therefore Thackerav chose to write of a 
Dobbin. 

So also of the preference given to Becky Sharp and to 
Rawdon Crawley. Thackeray thought that more can be 
done by exposing the vices than extolling the virtues of 
mankind. No doubt he had a more thorough belief in 
the one than in the other, ^he Dobbins he did encoun- 
ter — seldom ; the Rawdon Crawley s very often. He saw 
around him so much that was mean ! He was hurt so 
often by the little vanities of people I It was thus that 
he was driven to that overthoughtfulness about snobs of 



y4 THACKERAY. [chap. 

which I have spoken in the last chapter. It thus became 
natural to him to insist on the thing which he hated with 
unceasing assiduity, and only to break out now and again 
into a rapture of love for the true nobility which was dear 
to hun — as he did with the character of Captain Dobbin. 

It must be added to all this, that, before he has done 
M'ith his snob or his knave, he will generally weave in 
some little trait of humanity by which the sinner shall 
be relieved from the absolute darkness of utter iniquity. 
He deals with no Yarneys or Deputy-Shepherds, all villany 
and all lies, because the snobs and knaves he had seen had 
never been all snob or all knave. Even Shindy probably 
had some feeling for the poor woman he left at home. 
Kawdou Crawley loved his wicked wife dearly, and there 
were moments even with her in which some redeeming 
trait half reconciles her to the reader. 

Such were the faults which were found in Vanltij Fair ; 
but thouo'h the faults were found freelv, the book was 
read by all. Those who are old enough can well remem- 
ber the effect which it had, and the welcome which was 
given to the different numbers as they appeared. Though / 
the story is vague and wandering, clearly commenced with-j 
out any idea of an ending, yet there is something in the\ 
telling which makes every portion of it perfect in itself, i 
There are absurdities in it which would not be admitted/ 
to anyone who had not a peculiar gift of making evenf 
his absurdities delightful. No school-girl who ever lived 
would have thrown back her gift-book, as Rebecca did the 
" dixonary," out of the carriage window ^s she was taken 
away from school. But who does not love that scene 
with which the novel commences? How could such a 
girl as Amelia Osborne have got hei'self into such society 
as that in which we see her at Yauxhall I But we forgive 



III.] VANITY FAIH. 95 

it all because of the telling. And then there is that crown- 
ing absurdity of Sir Pitt Crawley and his establishraent. 

I never could understand how Thackeray in his first se- 
rious attempt could have dared to subject himself and Sir 
Pitt Crawley to the critics of the time. Sir Pitt is a bar- 
onet, a man of large property, and in Parliament, to whom 
Becky Sharp goes as a governess at the end of a delightful 
visit with her friend Amelia Sedley, on leaving Miss Pink- 
erton's school. The Sedley carriage takes her to Sir Pitt's 
door. " When the bell was rung a head appeared between 
the interstices of the dining-room shutters, and the door 
was opened by a man in drab breeches and gaiters, with a 
dirty old coat, a foul old neckcloth lashed round his bris- 
tly neck, a shining bald head, a leering red face, a pair 
of twinkling gray eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the 
grin. 

" ' This Sir Pitt Crawley's ?' says John from the box. 

" * E'es,' says the man at the door, with a nod. 

" ' Hand down these 'ere trunks there,' said John. 

" * Hand 'em down yourself,' said the porter." 
But John on the box declines to do this, as he cannot 
leave his horses. 

"The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his 
breeches' pockets, advanced on this summons, and throw- 
ing Miss Sharp's trunk over his shoulder, carried it into 
the house." Then Becky is shown into the house, and a 
dismantled dining-room is described, into which she is led 
by the dirty man with the trunk* 

Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker 
and tongs, were^ however, gathered round the fireplace, as was a sauce- 
pan over a feeble, sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese and 
bread and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black porter in 
a pint pot. 



1)G THACKERAY. [chap. 

" Had your dinner, I suppose V" This was said by him of the 
bald head. " It is not too warm for you ? Like a drop of beer ?'* 

*' Where is Sir Pitt Crawley ?" said Miss Sharp, majestically. 

*' He, he ! /'m Sir Pitt Crawley. Rek'lect you owe me a pint for 
bringing down your luggage. He, he ! ask Tinker if I ain't." 

The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker at this moment made her ap- 
pearance, with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she had been 
despatched a minute before Miss Sharp's arrival; and she handed 
the articles over to Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire. 

*' Where's the farden?" said he. "I gave you three half -pence; 
Where's the change, old Tinker ?" 

" There," replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin. " It's only 
baronets as cares about farthings." 

Sir Pitt Crawley has always been to me a stretch of au- 
dacity which I have been unable to understand. But it 
has been accepted ; and from this commencement of Sir 
Pitt Crawley have grown the wonderful characters of the 
Crawley family — old Miss Crawley, the worldly, wicked, 
pleasure-loving aunt ; the Rev. Bute Crawley and his wife, 
who are quite as worldly ; the sanctimonious elder son, who 
in truth is not less so ; and Rawdon, who ultimately be- 
comes Becky's husband — who is the bad hero of the book, 
as Dobbin is the good hero. They are admirable ; but it 
is quite clear that Thackeray had known nothing of what 
was coming about them when he caused Sir Pitt to eat his 
tripe with Mrs. Tinker in the London dining-room. 

There is a double story running through the book, the 
parts of which are but lightly woven together, of which 
the former tells us the life and adventures of that singular 
young woman, Becky Sharp ; and the other the troubles 
and ultimate success of our noble hero. Captain Dobbin. 
Though it be true that readers prefer, or pretend to prefer, 
the romantic to the common in their novels, and complain 
of pages which are defiled with that which is low, yet I find 



Ill] VANITY FAIR. 97 

that the absurd, the ludicrous, and even the evil, leave more 
impression behind them than the grand, the beautiful, or 
even the good. Dominie Sampson, Dugald Dalgetty, and 
Bothwell are, I think, more remembered than Fergus Mac- 
Ivor, than Ivanhoe himself, or Mr. Butler the minister. It 
certainly came to pass that, in spite of the critics, Becky 
Sharp became the first attraction in Vanity Fair. When 
we speak now of Vanity Fair^ it is always to Becky that 
our thoughts recur. She has made a position for herself 
in the world of fiction, and is one of our established per- 
sonages. 

I have already said how she left school, throwing the 
" dixonary " out of the window, like dust from her feet, 
and was taken to spend a few halcyon weeks with her 
friend Amelia Sedley, at the Sedley mansion in Russell 
Square. There she meets a brother Sedley home from In- 
dia — the immortal Jos — at whom she began to set her 
hitherto untried cap. Here we become acquainted both 
with the Sedley and with the Osborne families, with all 
their domestic affections and domestic snobbery, and have 
to confess that the snobbery is stronger than the affection. 
As we desire to love Amelia Sedley, we wish that the peo- 
ple around her were less vulgar or less selfish — especially 
we wish it in regard to that handsome young fellow, George 
Osborne, whom she loves with her whole heart. But with 
Jos Sedley we are inclined to be content, though he be fat, 
purse-proud, awkward, a drunkard, and a coward, because 
we do not want anything better for Becky. Becky does 
not want anything better for herself, because the man has 
money. She has been born a pauper. She knows herself 
to be but ill qualified to set up as a beauty — though by 
dint of cleverness she does succeed in that afterwards. 
She has no advantages in regard to friends or family aa 

5* 



98 THACKERAY. [chap. 

she enters life. She must earn her bread for herself. 
Young as she is, she loves money, and has a great idea of 
the power of money. Therefore, though Jos is distasteful 
at all points, she instantly makes her attack. She fails, 
however, at any rate for the present. She never becomes 
his wife, but at last she succeeds in getting some of his 
money. But before that time cpmes she has many a suf- 
fering to endure, and many a triumph to enjoy. 

She goes to Sir Pitt Crawley as governess for his sec- 
ond family, and is taken down to Queen's Crawley in the 
country. There her cleverness prevails, even with the 
baronet, of whom I have just given Thackeray's portrait. 
She keeps his accounts, and writes his letters, and helps 
him to save money ; she reads with the elder sister books 
they ought not to have read ; she flatters the sanctimoni- 
ouc son. In point of fact, she becomes all in all at Queen's 
Crawley, so that Sir Pitt himself falls in love with her — 
for there is reason to think that Sir Pitt may soon be- 
come again a widower. But there also came down to the 
baroneY;'s house, on an occasion of general entertaining. 
Captain Kawdon Crawley. Of course Becky sets her cap 
at him, ^nd of course succeeds. She always succeeds. 
Though she is only the governess, he insists upon dancing 
with her, to the neglect of all the young ladies of the 
neighbourhood. They continue to walk together by moon- 
light — or starHght — the great, heavy, stupid, half -tipsy 
dragoon, and the Intriguing, covetous, altogether unprinci- 
pled young woman. A.nd the two young people absolute- 
ly come to love one another in their way — the heavy, 
stupid, fuddled dragoon, and the false, covetous, altogether 
unprincipled young woman. 

The fat aunt Crawley is a maiden lady, very rich, and 
Becky quite succeeds in gaining the rich aunt by her 



ni] VANITY FAIR. 99 

wiles. The aunt becomes so fond of Becky down in the 
country, that when she has to return to her own house in 
town, sick from over -eating, she cannot be happy with- 
out taking Becky with her. So Becky is installed in the 
house in London, having been taken away abruptly from 
her pupils, to the great dismay of the old lady's long-es- 
tablished resident companion. They all fall in love with 
her ; she makes herself so charming, she is so clever ; she 
can even, by help of a little care in dressing, become so 
picturesque! As all this goes on, the reader feels what a 
great personage is Miss Rebecca Sharp. 

Lady Crawley dies down in the country, while Becky 
is still staying with his sister, who will not part with her. 
Sir Pitt at once rushes up to town, before the funeral, 
looking for consolation where only he can find it. Becky 
brings him down w^ord from his sister's room that the old 
lady is too ill to see him. 

" So much the better," Sir Pitt answered "I want to see you, 
Miss Sharp. I want you back at Queen's Crawley, miss," the bar- 
onet said. His eyes had such a strange look, and were fixed upon 
her so stedf astly that Rebecca Sharp began almost to tremble. Then 
she half promises, talks about the dear children, and angles with the 
old man. *'I tell you I want you," he says; *' I'm going back to 
the vuneral, will you come back ? — yes or no ?" 

" I daren't. I don't think — it wouldn't be right — to be alone-- 
with you, sir," Becky said, seemingly in great agitation. 

" I say again, I want you. I can't get on without you. I didn't 
see what it was till you went away. The house all goes wrong. 
It's not the same place. All my accounts has got muddled again. 
You must come back. Do come back. Dear Becky, do come." 

"Come — as what, sir?" Rebecca gasped out. 

" Come as Lady Crawley, if you like. There, will that zatisfy 
you? Come back and be my wife. You're vit for it. Birth be 
hanged. . You're as good a lady as ever I see. You've got more 
brains in your little vinger than Lny baronet's wife in the country. 



100 THACKERAY. [chap. 

Will you come ? Yes or no ?" Rebecca is startled, but the old man 
goes on. " I'll make you happy ; zee if I don't. You shall do what 
you like, spend what you like, and have it all your own way. I'll 
make you a settlement. I'll do everything regular. Look here," and 
the old man fell down on his knees and leered at her like a satyr. 

But Rebecca, though she had been angling, angling for 
favour and love and power, had not expected this. For 
once in her life she loses her presence of mind, and ex- 
claims : '' Oh, Sir Pitt ; oh, sir ; I — I'm married already !" 
She has married Rawdon Crawley, Sir Pitt's younger son, 
Miss Crawley's favourite among those of her family who 
are looking for her money. But she keeps her secret for 
the present, and writes a charming letter to the Captain : 
"Dearest, — Something tells me that we shall conquer. 
You shall leave that odious regiment. Quit gaming, rac- 
ing, and be a good boy, and we shall all live in Park Lane, 
and ma tante shall leave us all her money." Ma tante's 
money has been in her mind all through, but yet she loves 
him. 

" Suppose the old lady doesn't come to," Rawdon said to his little 
wife as they sat together in the snug little Brompton lodgings. She 
had been trying the new piano all the morning. The new gloves 
fitted her to a nicety. The new shawl became her wonderfully. 
The new rings glittered on her little hands, and the new watch ticked 
at her waist. 

*'rZi make your fortune," she said ; and Delilah patted Samson's 
cheek. 

" You can do anjiihing," he said, kissing the little hand. " By 
Jove you can! and we'll drive down to the Star and Garter and 
dine, by Jove !" 

They were neither of them quite heartless at that mo- 
ment, nor did Rawdon ever become quite bad. Then fol- 
low the adventures of Becky as a married woman, through 



Fit.] VANITY FAIR. lol 

all of which there is a glimmer of love for her stupid hus- 
band, while it is the real purpose of her heart to get money 
how she may — by her charms, by her wit, by her lies, by 
her readiness. She makes love to everyone — even to her 
sanctimonious brother-in-law, who becomes Sir Pitt in his 
time — and always succeeds. But in her love-making there 
is nothing of love. She gets hold of that well -remem- 
bered old reprobate, the Marquis of Steyne, who possesses 
the two valuable gifts of being very dissolute and very 
rich, and from him she obtains money and jewels to her 
heart's desire. The abominations of Lord Steyne are de- 
picted in the strongest language of which Vanity Fair 
admits. The reader's hair stands almost on end in hor- 
ror at the wickedness of the two wretches — at her desire 
for money, sheer money ; and his for wickedness, sheer 
wickedness. Then her husband finds her out — poor Raw- 
don ! who with all his faults and thick-headed stupidity, 
has become absolutely entranced by the wiles of his little 
wife. He is carried off to a sponging-house, in order that 
he may be out of the way, and, on escaping unexpectedly 
from thraldom, finds the lord in his wife's drawino'-room. 
Whereupon he thrashes the old lord, nearly killing him ; 
takes aw^ay the plunder which he finds on his wife's per- 
son, and hurries away to seek assistance as to further re- 
venge ; — for he is determined to shoot the marquis, or to 
be shot. He goes to one Captain Macmurdo, who is to 
act as his second, and there he pours out his heart. " You 
don't know how fond I was of that one," Rawdon said, 
half-inarticulately. '' Damme, I followed her like a foot- 
man ! I gave up everything I had to her. I'm a beggar 
because I would marry her. By Jove, sir, I've pawned my 
own watch to get her anything she fancied. And she — 
sh^'s been making a purse for herself all the time, and 



102 THACKERAY. [chap. 

gi'iidgcd me a liuudred pounds to get me out of quod !" 
His friend alleges that the wife may be innocent after all. 
" It may be so," Rawdon excl^med, sadly ; " but this 
don't look very innocent!" And he showed the captain 
the thousand-pound note which he had found in Becky's 
pocket-book. ' 

But the marquis can do better than fight ; and Raw- 
don, in spite of his true love, can do better than follow 
the quarrel up to his own undoing. The marquis, on tfic 
spur of the moment, gets the lady's husband appointed 
governor of Coventry Island, with a salary of three thou- 
sand pounds a*^year; and poor Rawdon at last conde- 
scends to accept the appointment. He will not see his 
wUe again, but he makes her an allowance out of his in- 
come. 

In arranging all this, Thackeray is enabled to have a 
side blow at the British way of distributing patronage — 
for the favour of which he w^as afterwards himself a can- 
didate.. He quotes as follows from The loyalist newspa- 
per : " We hear that the governorship "—of Coventry Isl- 
and — " has been offered to Colonel Raw-don Craw ley, C.B., 
a distinguished Waterloo officer. We need not only men 
of acknowledged bravery, but men of administrative tal- 
ents to superintend the affairs of our colonies; and we 
have no doubt that the gentleman selected by the Colo- 
nial Office to fill the lamented vacancy which has occurred 
at Coventry Island is admirably calculated for the post." 
The reader, however, is aware that the officer in question 
cannot write a sentence or speak two words correctly. 

Our heroine's adventures are carried on much further, 
but they cannot be given here in detail. To the end she 
is the same — utterly false, selfish, covetous, and successful. 
To have made such a woman really in love would have 



HI.] YANITY FAIR. 103 

been a mistake. Her husband she likes best — because he 
is, or was, her own. But there is no man so foul, so wick- 
ed, so unattractive, but that she can fawn over him for 
money and jewels. There are women to whom nothing 
is nasty, either in person, language, scenes, actions, or prin- 
ciple — and Becky is one of them ; and yet she is herself 
attractive. A most wonderful sketch, for the perpetration 
of which all Thackeray's power of combined indignation 
and humour was necessary ! 

The story of Amelia and her two lovers, George Osborne 
and Captain, or, as he came afterwards to be. Major, and 
Colonel Dobbin, is less interesting, simply because good- 
ness and eulogy are less exciting than wickedness and cen- 
sure. Amelia is a true, honest-hearted, thoroughly Eng- 
lish young woman, who loves her love because he is grand 
— to her eyes — and loving him, loves him with all her 
heart. Readers have said that she is silly, only because 
she is not heroic. I do not know that she is more silly 
than many young ladies whom we who are old have loved 
in our youth, or than those whom our sons are loving at 
the present time. Readers complain of Amelia because 
she is absolutely true to nature. There are no Raffaellis- 
tic touches, no added graces, no divine romance. She is 
feminine all over, and British — loving, true, thoroughly 
unselfish, yet with a taste for having things comfortable, 
forgiving, quite capable of jealousy, but prone to be ap- 
peased at once, at the first kiss ; quite convinced that her 
lover, her husband, her children are the people in all the 
world to whom the greatest consideration is due. Such 
a one is sure to be the dupe of a Becky Sharp, should 
a Becky Sharp come in her way — as is the case with so 
many sweet Amelias whom we have known. But in a mat- 
ter of love she is sound enough and sensible enough — and. 



104 THACKERAY. [chap. 

she is as true as steel. I know no trait in Amelia which 
a man would be ashamed to find in his own daughter. 

She marries her George Osborne, who, to tell the truth 
of him, is but a poor kind of fellow, though he is a brave 
soldier. He thinks much of his own person, and is self- 
ish. Thackeray puts in a touch or two here and there by 
which he is made to be odious. He would rather give a 
present to himself than to the girl who loved him. Nev- 
ertheless, when her father is ruined he marries her, and he 
fights bravely at Waterloo, and is killed. " No more fir- 
ing was heard at Brussels. The pursuit rolled miles away. 
Darkness came down on the field and the city ; and Ame- 
lia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, 
dead, with a bullet through his heart." 

Then follows the long courtship of Dobbin, the true 
hero — he who has been the friend of George since their 
old school-days ; who has lived with him and served him, 
and has also loved Amelia. But he has loved her — as 
one man may love another — solely with a view to the 
profit of his friend. He has known all along that George 
and Amelia have been engaged to each other as boy and 
girl. George would have neglected her, but Dobbin would 
not allow it. George would have jilted the girl who loved 
him, but Dobbin would not let him. He had nothing to 
get for himself, but loving her as he did, it was the work 
of his life to get for her all that she wanted. 

George is shot at Waterloo, and then come fifteen 
years of widowhood — fifteen years during which Becky 
is carrying on her manoeuvres — fifteen years during which 
Amelia cannot bring herself to accept the devotion of the 
old captain, who becomes at last a colonel. But at the 
end she is won. " The vessel is in port. He has got the 
prize he has been trying for all his life. The bird has 



111.] VANITY FAIR. 105 

come in at last. There it is, with its head on its shoulder, 
billing and cooing clean up to his heart, with soft, out- 
stretched fluttering wings. This is what he has asked for 
every day and hour for eighteen years. This is what he 
has pined after. Here it is — the summit, the end, the last 
page of the third volume.'^ 

The reader as he closes the book has on his mind a 
strong conviction, the strongest possible conviction, that 
among men George is as weak and Dobbin as noble as 
any that he has met in literature ; and that among women 
Amelia is as true and Becky as vile as any he has encoun- 
tered. Of so much he will be conscious. In addition to 
this he will unconsciously have found that every page he 
has read will have been of interest to him. There has 
been no padding, no longueurs ; every bit will have had 
its weight with him. And he will find too at the end, if 
he will think of it — though readers, I fear, seldom think 
much of this in regard to books they have read — that the 
lesson taught in every page has been good. There may 
be details of evil painted so as to disgust— painted almost 
too plainly — but none painted so as to allure. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMES. 

The absence of the heroic was, in Thackeray, so palpable 
to Thackeray himself that in his original preface to Pen- 
dennis^ when he began to be aware that his reputation was 
made, he tells his public what they may expect and what 
they may not, and makes his joking complaint of the 
readers of his time because they will not endure with pa- 
tience the true picture of a natural man. ** Even the gen- 
tlemen of our age," he says — adding that the story of 
Pendennis is an attempt to describe one of them, just as 
he is — '' even tJiose we cannot show as they are with the 
notorious selfishness of their time and their education. 
Since the author of Tom Jones was buried, no writer of 
fiction among us has been permitted to depict to his ut- 
most power a man. We must shape him, and give him 
a certain conventional temper." Then he rebukes his au- 
dience because they will not listen to the truth. "You 
will not hear what moves in the real world, what passes 
in society, in the clubs, colleges, mess-rooms — what is the 
life and talk of your sons." You want the Raffaellistic 
touch, or that of some painter of horrors equally removed 
from the truth. I tell you how a man really does act — 
as did Fielding with Tom Jones — but it does not satisfy 
you. You will not sympathise with this young man of 



CHAP. IV.] PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMES. 107 

mine, this Pendennis, because he is neither angel nor imp. 
If it be so, let it be so. I will not paint for you angels or 
imps, because I do not see them. The young man of the 
day, whom L do see, and of whom I know the inside and 
the out thoroughly, him I have painted for you ; and here 
he is, whether you like the picture or not. This is what 
Thackeray meant, and, having this in his mind, he produced 
Pendennis, 

The object of a novel should be to instruct in morals 
while it amuses. I cannot think but that every novelist 
who has thought much of his art will have realised as 
much as that for himself. Whether this may best be 
done by the transcendental or by the common-place is the 
question which it more behoves the reader than the author 
to answer, because the author may be fairly sure that he 
who can do the one will not, probably cannot, do the oth- 
er. If a lad be only five feet high, he does not try to en- 
list, in the Guards. Thackeray complains that many ladies 
have *' remonstrated and subscribers left him," because of 
his realistic tendency. Nevertheless he has gone on with 
his work, and, in Pendennis, has painted a young man as 
natural as Tom Jones. Had he expended himself in the 
attempt, he could not have drawn a Master of Ravens- 
wood. 

It has to be admitted that Pendennis is not a fine fel- 
low. He is not as weak, as selfish, as untrustworthy as 
that George Osborne whom Amelia married in Vanity 
Fair ; but nevertheless, he is weak, and selfish, and un- 
trustworthy. He is not such a one as a father would 
wish to see his son, or a mother to welcome as a lover for 
her daughter. But then, fathers are so often doomed to 
find their sons not all that they wish, and mothers to see 
their girls falling in love with young men who are not 



108 THACKERAY. [chap. 

Paladins. In our individual lives we are contented to en- 
dure an admixture of evil, which we should resent if im- 
puted to us in the general. We presume ourselves to be 
truth-speaking, noble in our sentiments, generous in our 
actions, modest and unselfish, chivalrous and devoted. 
But we forgive and pass over in silence a few delinquen- 
cies among ourselves. What boy at school ever is a cow- 
ard — in the general ? What gentleman ever tells a lie ? 
What young lady is greedy ? We take it for granted, as 
though they were fixed rules in life, that our boys from 
our public schools look us in the face and are manly ; that 
our gentlemen tell the truth as a matter of course ; and 
that our young ladies are refined and unselfish. Thackeray 
is always protesting that it is not so, and that no good is 
to be done by blinking the truth. He knows that we have 
our little home experiences. Let us have the facts out, and 
mend what is bad if we can. This novel of Pendennis is 
one of his loudest protests to this effect. 

I will not attempt to tell the storj^^ of Pendennis, how 
his mother loved him, how he first came to be brought up 
together with Laura Bell, how he thrashed the other boys 
when he was a boy, and how he fell in love with Miss 
Fotheringay, nee Costigan, and was determined to marry 
her while he was still a hobbledehoy, how he went up to 
Boniface, that well-known college at Oxford, and there 
did no good, spending money which he had not got, and 
learning to gamble. The English gentleman, as we know, 
never lies ; but Pendennis is not quite truthful ; when the 
college tutor, thinking that he hears the rattling of dice, 
makes his way into Pen's room. Pen and his two compan- 
ions are found with three Homers before them, and Pen 
asks the tutor with great gravity : " What was the present 
condition of the river Scamander, and whether it was nav- 



IV.] PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMES. 109 

igable or no ?" He tells his motlier that, during a certain 
vacation he must stay up and read, instead of coming 
home — but, nevertheless, he goes up to London to amuse 
himself. The reader is soon made to understand that, 
though Pen may be a fine gentleman, he is not trust- 
worthy. But he repents and comes home, and kisses his 
mother ; only, alas ! he will always be kissing somebody 
else also. 

The story of the Amorys and the Claverings, and that 
wonderful French cook M. Alcide Mirobolant, forms one 
of those delightful digressions which Thackeray scatters 
through his novels rather than weaves into them. They 
generally have but little to do with the story itself, and 
are brought in only as giving scope for some incident to 
the real hero or heroine. But in this digression Pen is 
very much concerned indeed, for he is brought to the 
very verge of matrimony with that peculiarly disagreea- 
ble lady Miss Amory. He does escape at last, but only 
within a few pages of the end, when we are made un- 
happy by the lady's victory over that poor young sinner 
Foker, wdth whom we have all come to sympathise, in 
spite of his vulgarity and fast propensities. She would 
to the last fain have married Pen, in whom she believes, 
thinking that he would make a name for her. " II me 
faut des emotions," says Blanche. Whereupon the author, 
as he leaves her, explains the nature of this ^iss Amory's 
feelings. "For this young lady was not able to carry 
out any emotion to the full, but had a sham enthusiasm, 
a sham Ifatred, a sham love, a sham taste, a sham grief ; 
each of which flared and shone very vehemently for an 
instant, but subsided and gave place to the next sham 
emotion." Thackeray, when he drew this portrait, must 
certainly have had some special young lady in his view, 



110 THACKERAY. [chap 

But though we are made unhappy for Foker, Foker too 
escapes at last, and Blanche, with her emotions, marries 
that verv doubtful nobleman Comte Montmorenci de 
Valentinois. 

But all this of Miss Amory is but an episode. The 
purport of the story is the way in which the hero is 
made to enter upon the world, subject as he has been to 
the sweet teaching of his mother, and subject as he is 
made to be to the worldly lessons of his old uncle the 
major. Then he is ill, and nearly dies, and his mother 
comes up to nurse him. And there is his friend War^ 
rington, of whose family down in Suffolk we shall have 
heard something when we have read The Virginians — one, 
I think, of the finest characters, as it is certainly one of 
the most touching, that Thackeray ever drew. Warring- 
ton, and Pen's mother, and Laura are our hero's better 
angels — angels so good as to make us wonder that a 
creature so weak should have had such angels about 
him ; though we are driven to confess that their affection 
and loyalty for him are natural. There is a melancholy 
beneath the rouQ'hness of Warrinoton, and a feminine 
softness combined with the reticent manliness of the man, 
which have endeared him to readers beyond perhaps any 
character in the book. Major Pendennis has become 
immortal. Selfish, worldly, false, padded, caring alto- 
gether for things mean and poor in themselves ; still the 
reader likes him. It is not quite all for himself. To Pen 
he is good — to Pen, who is the head of his family, and to 
come after him as the Pendennis of the day. * To Pen 
and to Pen's mother he is beneficent after his lights. In 
whatever he undertakes, it is so contrived that the reader 
shall in some degree sympathise with him. And so it is 
with poor old Costigan, the drunken Irish captain, Miss 



iv.] PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMES. Ill 

Fotheringay's papa. He was not a pleasant person. " We 
have witnessed the deshabille of Major Pendennis," says 
our author ; *' will any one wish to be valet-de-chambre to 
our other hero, Costigan ? It would seem that the cap- 
tain, before issuing from his bedroom, scented himself 
with otto of whisky." Yet there is a kindliness about 
him which softens our hearts, though in truth he is 
very careful that the kindness shall always be shown to 
himself. 

Among these people Pen makes his way to the end of 
the novel, coming near to shipwreck on various occasions, 
a^^d always deserving the shipwreck which he has almost 
encountered. Then there will arise the question whether 
it might not have been better that he should be altogether 
shipwrecked, rather than housed comfortably with such a 
wife as Laura, and left to that enjoyment of happiness 
forever after, which is the normal heaven prepared for 
heroes and heroines who have done their work well 
through three volumes. It is almost the only instance 
in all Thackeray's works in which this state of bliss is 
reached. George Osborne, who is the beautiful lover in 
Vanity Fair^ is killed almost before our eyes, on the 
field of battle, and we feel that Nemesis has with justice 
taken hold of him. Poor old Dobbin does marry the 
widow, after fifteen years of further service, when we 
know him to be a middle-aged man and her a middle-aged 
woman. That glorious Paradise of which I have spoken 
requires a freshness which can hardly be attributed to 
the second marriage of a widow who has been fifteen 
years mourning for her first husband. Clive Newcome, 
"the first young man," if we may so call him, of the 
novel which I shall mention just now, is carried so far 
beyond his matrimonial elysium that we are allowed to 



112 THACKERAY. [chap. 

see too plainly how far from true may be those promises 
of hymeneal happiness forever after. The cares of mar- 
ried life have settled down heavily upon his young head 
before we leave him. He not only marries, but loses 
his wife, and is left a melancholy widower with his son. 
Esmond and Beatrix certainly reach no such elysium as 
that of which we are speaking. But Pen, who surely 
deserved a Nemesis, though perhaps not one so black as 
that demanded by George Osborne's delinquencies, is 
treated as though he had been passed through the fire, 
and had come out — if not pure gold, still gold good 
enough for goldsmiths. "And what sort of a husbai^ 
will this Pendennis be?" This is the question asked by 
the author himself at the end of the novel; feeling, no 
doubt, some hesitation as to the justice of what he had 
just done. "And what sort of a husband will this Pen- 
dennis be ?" many a reader will ask, doubting the happi- 
ness of such a marriage and the future of Laura. The 
querists are referred to that lady herself, who, seeing his 
faults and wayward moods — seeing and owning that there 
are better men than he — loves him always with the most 
constant affection. The assertion could be made with 
perfect confidence, but is not to the purpose. That 
Laura's affection should be constant, no one would doubt ; 
but more than that is wanted for happiness. How about 
Pendennis and his constancy ? 

The Newcomes^ which I bracket in this chapter with 
Pendennis^ was not written till after Esmond^ and ap- 
peared between that novel and The Virginians^ which 
was a sequel to Esmond. It is supposed to be edited by 
Pen, whose own adventures we have just completed, and 
is commenced by that celebrated night passed by Colonel 
Newcome and his boy Clive at the Cave of Harmony, 



iv.] PENDENMS AND THE NEWCOMES. 113 

during- which the colonel is at first so pleasantly received 
and so genially entertained, but from which he is at last 
banished, indignant at the iniquities of our drunken old 
friend Captain Costigan, wil^h whom we had become 
intimate in Pen's own memoirs. The boy Clive is de- 
scribed as being probably about sixteen. At the end of 
the story he has run through the adventures of his early 
life, and is left a melancholy man, a widower, one who 
has suffered the extremity of misery from a step moth ef^ 
and who is wrapped up in the only son that is left to him 
— as had been the case with his father at the beginning 
of the novel. The Newcomes^ therefore, like Thackeray's 
other tales, is rather a slice from the biographical memoirs 
of a family, than a romance or novel in itself. 

It is full of satire from the first to the last page. Every 
word of it seems to have been written to show how vile 
and poor a place this world is ; how prone men are to de- 
ceive, how prone to be deceived. There is a scene in which 
"his Excellency Rummun Loll, otherwise his Highness 
Rummun Loll," is introduced to Colonel Newcome — or 
rather presented — for the two men had known each other 
before. All London was talking of Rummun Loll, taking 
him for an Indian prince, but the colonel, who had served 
in India, knew better. Rummun Loll was no more than 
a merchant, who had made a precarious fortune by doubt- 
ful means. All the girls, nevertheless, are running after 
his Excellency. " He's known to have two wives already 
in India," says Barnes Newcome ; " but, by gad, for a set- 
tlement, I believe some of the girls here would marry him." 
We have a delightful illustration of the London girls, with 
their bare necks and shoulders, sitting round Rummun 
Loll and worshipping him as he reposes on his low settee. 
There are a dozen of them so enchanted that the men who 

6 



lii ^ THAdKERAY. [chap. 

wish to get a sight of the Rummun are quite kept at a 
distance. This is satire on the women. A few pages on 
we come upon a clergyman who is no more real than Rum- 
mun Loll. The clergyman,, Charles Honeyman, had mar- 
ried the colonel's sister and had lost his wife, and now the 
brothers-in-law meet. "' Poor, poor Emma !' exclaimed 
the ecclesiastic, casting his eyes towards the chandelier and 
passing a white cambric pocket-handkerchief gracefully 
before them. No man in London understood the ring 
business or the pocket-handkerchief business better, or 
smothered his emotion more beautifully. * In the gayest 
moments, in the giddiest throng of fashion, the thoughts 
of the past will rise ; the departed will be among us still. 
But this is not the strain wherewith to greet the friend 
newly arrived on our shores. How it rejoices me to be- 
hold you in old England !' " And so the satirist goes on 
with Mr. Honeyman the clergyman. Mr. Honeyman the 
clergyman has been already mentioned^ in that extract 
made in our first chapter from Lovel the Widower, It 
was he who assisted another friend, '' with his wheedling 
tongue," in inducing Thackeray to purchase that "neat 
little literary paper" — called then 7%e Jl/wsewm, but which 
was in truth The National Standard. In describing 
Barnes Newcome, the colonel's relative, Thackeray in the 
same scene attacks the sharpness of the young men of busi- 
ness of the present day. There were, or were to be, some 
transactions with Rummun Loll, and Barnes Newcome, be- 
ing in doubt, asks the colonel a question or two as to the 
certainty of the Rummun's money, much to the colonel's 
disgust. " The young man of business had dropped his 
drawl or his languor, and was speaking quite unaffectedly, 
good-naturedly, and selfishly. Had you talked to him for 
a week you would not have made him understand the 



IV.] PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMER ll5 

scorn and loathing with which the colonel regarded him. 
Here was a young fellow as keen as the oldest curmud- 
geon — a lad with scarce a beard to his chin, that would 
pursue his bond as rigidly as Shylock." "Barnes New- 
come never missed a church," he goes on, " or dressing for 
dinner. He never kept a tradesman waiting for his money. 
He seldom drank too much, and never was late for busi- 
ness, or huddled over his toilet, however brief his sleep or 
severe his headache. In a word, he was as scrupulously 
whited as any sepulchre in the whole bills of mortality." 
Thackeray had lately seen some Barnes Newcome when he 
wrote that. 

It is all satire ; but there is generally a touch of pathos 
even through the satire. It is satire when Miss Quigley, 
the governess in Park Street, falls in love with the old 
colonel after some dim fashion of her own. "When she 
is walking with her little charges in the Park, faint signals 
of welcome appear on her wan cheeks. She knows the 
dear colonel amidst a thousand horsemen." The colonel 
had drunk a glass of wine with her after his stately fash- 
ion, and the foolish old maid thinks too much of it. Then 
we are told how she knits purses for him, " as she sits 
alone in the schoolroom — high up in that lone house, 
when the little ones are long since asleep — before her dis- 
mal little tea-tray, and her little desk containing her moth- 
er's letters and her mementoes of home." Miss Quigley is 
an ass ; but we are made to sympathise entirely with the 
ass, because of that morsel of pathos as to her mother's 
letters. 

Clive Newcome, our hero, who is a second Pen, but a 
better fellow, is himself a satire on young men — on young 
men who are idle and ambitious at the same time. He is 
a painter ; but, instead of being proud of his art, is half 



116 I^HACKEKAY. [^^ap. 

ashamed of it — because riot beiiig industrious be bas not, 
wbile yet young, learned to excel. He is " doing *^ a por- 
trait of Mrs. Pendennis, Laura, and tbus speaks of bis busi- 
ness. "No. 666 " — be is supposed to be quoting from tbe 
catalogue of tbe Royal Academy for tbe year — " No. 666. 
Portrait of Josepb Muggins, Esq., Newcome, George Street. 
No. 979. Portrait of Mrs. Muggins on ber gray pony. New- 
come. No. 579. Portrait of Josepb Muggins, Esq.'s dog 
Toby, Newcome. Tbis is wbat I am fit for. These are 
tbe victories I have set myself on achieving. Ob, Mrs. 
Pendennis! isn't it humiliating? Why isn't there a war? 
Why haven't I a genius? There is a painter who lives 
bard by, and who begs me to come and look at bis work. 
He is in tbe Muggins line too. He gets bis canvases with 
a good light upon them ; excludes the contemplation of 
other objects; stands beside his picture in an attitude 
himself; and thinks that be and they are masterpieces. 
Ob me, what drivelling wretches we are ! Fame ! — ex- 
cept that of just the gne or two — what's the use of it?" 
In all of which Thackeray is speaking bis own feelings 
about himself as well as tbe world at large. What's tbe 
use of it all ? Ob vanitas vanitatum ! Oh vanity and 
vexation of spirit ! " So Clive Newcome," be says after- 
wards, " lay on a bed of dow^n and tossed and tumbled 
there. He went to fine dinners, and sat silent over them ; 
rode fine horses, and black care jumped up behind the 
moody horseman." As I write this I have before me a 
letter from Thackeray to a friend describing bis own suc- 
cess when Vanity Fair was coming out, full of the same 
feeling. He is making money, but be spends it so fast 
that be never bas any ; and as for the opinions expressed 
on bis books, be cares little for wbat he hears. There was 
always present to him a feeling of black care seated be- 



iv.] I'ENDIINNIS AND THE NEWOOMES. IH 

hind the horseiHaii— aiid Would have been equally so had 
there been no real care present to him^ A sardonic mel- 
ancholy was the characteristic most common to him — 
which, however^ was relieved by an always present capac- 
ity for instant frolic* It was these attributes combined 
which made him of all satirists the most humorous, aiid of ^ 
all humorists the most satirical. It was these that pro- 
duced the Osbornes, the Dobbins, the Pens, the Olives, and 
the Newcomes, whom, when he loved them the most, he 
could not save himself from describing as mean and un- 
worthy. A somewhat heroic hero of romance — such a 
one, let us say, as Waverley, or Lovel in The Antiquary^ or 
Morton in Old Mortality — was revolting to him, as lack- 
ing those foibles which human nature seemed to him to 
demand. 

The story ends with two sad tragedies, neither of which 
would have been demanded by the story, had not such 
sadness been agreeable to the author's own idiosyncrasy. 
The one is the ruin of the old colon eFs fortunes, he hav- 
ing allowed himself to be enticed into bubble speculations ; 
and the other is the loss of all happiness, and even com- 
fort, to Olive the hero, by the abominations of his mother- 
in-law. The woman is so iniquitous, and so tremendous 
in her iniquities, that she rises to tragedy. Who does not 
know Mrs. Mack the Oampaigner? Why at the end of his 
long story should Thackeray have married his hero to so 
lackadaisical a heroine as poor little Rosey, or brought on 
the stage such a she-demon as Rosey's mother? But there 
is the Oampaigner in all her vigour, a marvel of strength 
of composition — one of the most vividly drawn characters 
in fiction — but a woman so odious that one is induced to 
doubt whether she should have been depicted. 

The other tragedy is altogether of a different kind, and 



118 THACKERAY. [cttAr. iv. 

though utinecessary to the story ^ atid contrary to that 
practice of story-telling which seems to demand that ca- 
lamities to those personages with whom we are to sympa- 
thise should not be brought in at the close of a work of 
fiction, is so beautifully told that no lover of Thackeray's 
work would be willing to part with it. The old colonel, 
as we have said, is ruined by speculation, and in his ruin is 
brought to accept the alms of the brotherhood of the Grey 
Friars. Then we are introduced to the Charter House, at 
which, as most of us know, there still exists a brotherliood 
of the kind. He dons the gown — this old colonel, who 
had always been comfortable in his means, and latterly 
apparently rich — and occupies the single room, and eats 
the doled bread, and among his poor brothers sits in the 
chapel of his order. The description is perhaps as fine as 
anything that Thackeray ever did. The gentleman is still 
the gentleman, with all the pride of gentry ; — but not the 
less is he the humble bedesman, aware that he is living 
upon charity, not made to grovel by any sense of shame, 
but knowing that, though his normal pride may be left to 
him, an outward demeanour of humility is befitting. 

And then he dies. "At the usual evenino; hour the 
chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands 
outside the bed feebly beat time — and just as the last bell 
struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he 
lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, * Adsum ' — and 
fell back. It was the word we used at school when names 
were called ; and, lo, he whose heart was as that of a little 
child had answered to his name, and stood in the presence 
of his Maker !" 



CHAPTER V. 

ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS. 

The novel with which we are now going to deal I regard 
as the greatest work that Thackeray did. Though I do 
not hesitate to compare himself with himself, I will make 
no comparison between him and others ; I therefore ab- 
stain from assigning to Esmond any special niche among 
prose fictions in the English language, but I rank it so 
high as to justify me in placing him among the small 
number of the highest class of English novelists. Much as 
I think of Barry Lyndon and Vanity Fair, I cannot quite 
say this of them ; but, as a chain is not stronger than its 
weakest link, so is a poet, or a dramatist, or a novelist to 
be placed in no lower level than that which he has attained 
by his highest sustained flight. The excellence which has 
been reached here Thackeray achieved, without doubt, by 
giving a greater amount of forethought to the work he 
had before him than had been his wont. When we were 
young we used to be told, in our house at home, that " el- 
bow-grease "was the one essential necessary to getting a 
tough piece of work well done. If a mahogany table was 
to -be made to shine, it was elbow-grease that the operation 
needed. Forethought is the elbow-grease which a novelist 
■ — or poet — or dramatist — requires. It is not only his plot 
that has to be turned and re-turned in his mind, not his 



120 THACKERAY. [chap. 

plot cluefly, but he has to make himself sure of his situa- 
tions, of his characters, of his effects, so that when the 
time comes for hitting the nail he may know where to hit 
it on the head — so that he may himself understand the 
passion, the calmness, the virtues, the vices, the rewards 
and punishments which he means to explain to others — so 
that his proportions shall be correct, and he be saved from 
the absurdity of devoting two-thirds of his book to the 
beginning, or two-thirds to the completion of his task. It 
is from want of this special labour, more frequently than 
from intellectual deficiency, that the tellers of stories fail 
so often to hit their nails on the head. To think of a 
story is much harder work than to write it. The author 
can sit down with the pen in his hand for a given time, 
and produce a certain number of words. That is compar- 
atively easy, and if he have a conscience in regard to his 
task, work will be done regularly. But to think it over as 
you lie in bed, or walk about, or sit cosily over your fire, 
to turn it all in your thoughts, and make the things fit — - 
that requires elbow-grease of the mind. The arrangement 
of the words is as though you were w^alking simply along 
a road. The arrangement of your story is as though you 
were carrying a sack of flour while you walked. Fielding 
had carried his sack of flour before he wrote Tom Jones, 
and Scott his before he produced Ivanhoe. So had 
Thackeray done — a very heavy sack of flour — in creating 
Esmond. In Vanity Fair, in Pendennis, and in The New- 
comes, there was more of that mere wandering in which 
no heavy burden was borne. The richness of the author's 
mind, the beauty of his language, his imagination and 
perception of character, are all there. For that which 
was lovely he has shown his love, and for the hateful 
his hatred; but, nevertheless, they are comparatively idle 



v.] ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS. 121 

books. His only work, as far as I can judge them, in 
which there is no touch of idleness, is Esmond. Barry 
Lyndon is consecutive, and has the well-sustained purpose 
of exhibiting a finished rascal ; but Barry Lyndon is not 
quite the same from beginning to end./ All his full-fledged 
novels, except Esmond, contain rather strings of incidents 
and memoirs of individuals, than a completed story. But 
Esmond is a whole from beginning to end, with its tale 
well told, its purpose developed, its moral brought home— 
and its nail hit well on the head and driven in. | 
( 1 told Thackeray once that it was not only his best 
work, but so much the best, that there was none second 
to it. " That was what I intended," he said, " but I have 
failed. Nobody reads it. After all, what does it matter ?" 
he went on after awhile. " If they like anything, one 
ought to be satisfied. After all, Esmond was a prig." 
Then he laughed and changed the subject, not caring to 
dwell on thoughts painful to him.) The elbow-grease of 
thinking was always distasteful to him, and had no doubt 
been so when he conceived and carried out this work. 
( To the ordinary labour necessary for such a novel he 
added very much by his resolution to write it in a style 
different, not only from that which he had made his own, 
but from that also which belonged to the time. He had 
devoted himself to the reading of the literature of Queen 
Anne's reign, and having chosen to throw his story into 
that period, and to create in it personages who were to be 
peculiarly concerned with the period, he resolved to use as 
the vehicle for his story the forms of expression then prev- 
alent. No one who has not tried it can understand how 
great is the diflSculty of mastering a phase of one's owu 
language other than that which habit has made familiar. 
To write in another language, if the language be sufB^ 

6-* 



J22 THACKERAY. [chap. 

ciently known, is a much less arduous undertaking. The 
lad who attempts to write his essay in Ciceronian Latin 
struggles to achieve a style which is not indeed common 
to him, but is more common than any other he has be- 
come acquainted with in that tongue. But Thackeray in 
his work had always to remember his Swift, his Steele, 
and his Addison, and to forget at the same time the modes 
of expression w^hich the day had adopted. ] Whether he 
asked advice on the subject, I do not know. But I feel 
sure that if he did he must have been counselled against 
it. Let my reader think what advice he would give to 
any writer on such a subject. Probably he asked no ad- 
vice, and would have taken none. No doubt he found 
himself, at first imperceptibly, gliding into a phraseology 
which had attractions for his ear, and then probably was 
so charmed with the peculiarly masculine forms of sen- 
tences which thus became familiar to him, that he thought 
it would be almost as difficult to drop them altogether as 
altogether to assume the use of them. And if he could do 
so successfully, how great would be the assistance given 
to the local colouring which is needed for a novel in prose, 
the scene of which is thrown far back from the writer's 
period ! Were I to write a poem about Coeur de Lion, I 
should not mar my poem by using the simple language of 
the day ; but if I write a prose story of the time, I cannot 
altogether avoid some attempt at far-away quaintnesses in 
language. To call a purse a " gypsire," and to begin your 
little speeches with ** Marry come up," or to finish them 
with " Quotha,'' are but poor attempts. But even they 
have had their effect. Scott did the best he could with 
his Coeur de Lion. When we look to it we find that it 
was but little ; though in his hands it passed for much. 
^ ■ By my troth," said the knight, ** thou hast sung well and 



VJ 



ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS. 123 



heartily, and in high praise of thine order." We doubt 
whether he achieved any similarity to the language of the 
time ; but still, even in the little which he attempted, there 
was something of the picturesque. But how much more 
would be done if in very truth the whole language of a 
story could be thrown with correctness into the form of 
expression used at the time depicted? 
f It was this that Thackeray tried in his Esmond^ and he 
has done it almost without a flaw. The time in question 
is near enough to us, and the literature sufficiently familiar 
to enable us to judge. Whether folk swore by their troth 
in the days of King Richard I. we do not know, but when 
we read Swift's letters, and Addison's papers, or Defoe's 
novels, we do catch the. veritable sounds of Queen Anne's 
age, and can say for ourselves whether Thackeray has 
caught them correctly or not. No reader can doubt that 
he has done so. 1 Nor is the reader ever struck with the 
affectation of an assumed dialect. The words come as 
though they had been written naturally — though not nat- 
ural to the middle of the nineteenth century. It was a 
tour de force^ and successful as such a tour de force so 
seldom is. But though Thackeray was successful in adopt- 
ing the tone he wished to assume, he never quite succeed- 
ed, as far as my ear can judge, in altogether dropping it 



again. 



And yet it has to be remembered that though Esmond. 
deals with the times of Queen Anne, and " copies the lan- 
guage " of the time, as Thackeray himself says in the ded- 
ication, the story is not supposed to have been written till 
the reign of George 11. Esmond in his narrative speaks 
ot Fielding and Hogarth, who did their best work under 
George II. The idea is that Henry Esmond, the hero, 

We'it out to Virginia after the events told, and there wrote 
I 



124 THACKERAY. [chap. 

the memoir in the form of an autobiography. The estate 
of Castlewood, in Virginia, had been given to the Esmond 
family by Charles II. ; and this Esmond, our hero, finding 
that expatriation would best suit both his domestic happi- 
ness and his political difficulties — as the reader of the book 
will understand might be the case — settles himself in th^e 
colony, and there writes the history of his early life. He 
retains the manners, and with the manners the language 
of his youth. He lives among his own people, a country 
gentleman with a broad domain, mixing but little with the 
world beyond, and remains an English gentleman of the 
time of Queen Anne. The story is continued in The Vir- 
ginians^ the name given to a record of two lads who were 
grandsons of Harry Esmond, whose names are Warring- 
ton. Before The Virginians appeared we had already be- 
come acquainted with a scion of that family, the friend of 
Arthur Pendennis, a younger son of Sir Miles Warrington, 
of Suffolk. Henry Esmond's daughter had in a previous 
generation married a younger son of the then baronet. 
This is mentioned now to show the way in which Thack- 
eray's mind worked afterwards upon the details and char- 
acters which he had originated in Esmond. 

It is not my purpose to tell the story here, but rather 
to explain the way in which it is written, to show how it 
differs from other stories, and thus to explain its effect 
Harry Esmond, who tells the story, is of course the hero- 
There are two heroines who equally command our sympa- 
thy — Lady Castlewood, the wife of Harry's kinsman, and 
her daughter Beatrix. Thackeray himself declared the 
man to be a prig, and he was not altogether wrong. Bea- 
trix, with whom throughout the whole book he is in love, 
knew him well. '' Shall I be frank with you, Harry,'" she 
says, when she is engaged to another suitor, *' and sa}^ that 



T.] ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS. 125 

if you had not been down on your knees and so humble, 
you might have fared better with me ? A woman of my 
spirit, cousin, is to be won by gallantry, and not by sighs 
and rueful faces. All the time you are worshipping and 
singing hymns to me, I know very well I am no goddess." 
And again: "As for yon, you want a woman to bring 
your slippers and cap, and to sit at your feet and cry, O 
caro, caro ! O bravo ! whilst you read your Shakespeares 
and Miltons and stuff." He w^as a prig, and the girl he 
loved knew him, and being quite of another way of think- 
ing herself, would have nothing to say to him in the way 
of love. But without something of the aptitudes of a 
prig the character which the author intended could not 
have been drawn. There was to be courage — military 
courage — and that propensity to fighting which the tone 
of the age demanded in a finished gentleman. Esmond, 
therefore, is ready enougb to use his sword. But at the 
same time he has to live as becomes one whose name is in 
some degree under a cloud ; for though he be not in truth 
an illegitimate offshoot of the noble family which is his, 
and though he knows that he is not so, still he has to live 
as though he were. He becomes a soldier, and it was just 
then that our army w^as accustomed " to swear horribly 
in Flanders." But Esmond likes his books, and cannot 
swear or drink like other soldiers. Nevertheless he has a 
sort of liking for fast ways in others, knowing that such 
are the ways of a gallant cavalier. There is a melancholy 
over his life which makes him always, to himself and to 
others, much older than his years. He is well aware that, 
being as* he is, it is impossible that Beatrix should love 
him. Now and then there is a dash of lightness about 
him, as though he had taught himself, in his philosophy, 
that even sorrow may be borne with a smile — as though 



126 THACKERAY. [chap. 

there was something in him of the Stoic's doctrine, which 
made him feel that even disappointed love should not be 
seen to wound too deep. But still, when he smiles, even 
when he indulges in some little pleasantry, there is that 
garb of melancholy over him which always makes a man a 
prig. ' But he is a gentleman from the crown of his head 
to the sole of his foot. Thackeray had let the whole 
power of his intellect apply itself to a conception of the 
character of a gentleman. This man is brave, polished, 
gifted with that old-fashioned courtesy which ladies used 
to love, true as steel, loyal as faith himself, with a power 
of self-abnegation which astonishes the criticising reader 
when he finds such a virtue carried to such an extent with- 
out seeming to be unnatural. To draw the picture of a 
man, and say that he is gifted with all the virtues, is easy 
enough — easy enough to describe him as performing all 
the virtues. The difficulty is to put your man on his legs, 
and make him move about, carrying his virtues with a nat- 
ural gait, so that the reader shall feel that he is becoming 
acquainted with flesh and blood, not with a wooden figure. 
The virtues are all there with Henry Esmond, and the 
flesh and blood also, so that the reader believes in them. 
But still there is left a flavour of the character which 
Thackeray himself tasted when he called his hero a prig. 

The two heroines. Lady Castlewood and Beatrix, are 
mother and daughter, of whom the former is in love with 
Esmond, and the latter is loved by him. Fault has been 
found with the story, because of the unnatural rivalry — 
because it has been felt that a mothers solicitude for her 
daughter should admit of no such juxtaposition. But the 
criticism has come, I think, from, those who have failed to 
understand, not from those who have understood the tale; 
not because they have read it, but because they have not 



v.] ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS. 127 

read it, and have only looked at it or heard of it. Lady 
Castlewood is perhaps ten years older than the boy Es- 
mond, whom she first finds in her husband's house, and 
takes as a protege ; and from the moment in which she 
finds that he is in love with her own daughter, she does 
her best to bring about a marriage between them. Her 
husband is alive, and though he is a drunken brute — after 
the manner of lords of that time — she is thoroughly loyal 
to him. The little touches, of which the woman is herself 
altogether unconscious, that gradually tiirn a love for the 
boy into a love for the man, are told so delicately, that it 
is only at last that the reader perceives what has in truth 
happened to the woman. She is angry with him, grate- 
ful to him, careful over him, gradually conscious of all his 
worth, and of all that he does to her and hers, till at last 
her heart is unable to resist. But then she is a widow ; — • 
and Beatrix has declared that her ambition will not allow 
her to marry so humble a swain, and Esmond has become 
— as he says of himself when he calls himself " an old gen- 
tleman " — " the guardian of all the family," " fit to be tho 
grandfather of you all." 

/The character of Lady Castlewood has required more 
delicacy in its manipulation than perhaps any other which 
Thackeray has drawn. There is a mixture in it of self- 
negation and of jealousy, of gratefulness of heart and of 
the weary thoughtfulness of age, of occasional sprightli- 
ness with deep melancholy, of injustice with a thorough 
appreciation of the good around her, of personal weakness 
— as shown always in her intercourse with her children, 
and of personal strength — as displayed when she vindi- 
cates the position of her kinsman Henry to the Duke of 
Hamilton, who is about to marry Beatrix; — a mixture 
which has required a master's hand to trace. These con- 



128 THACKERAY. [chap. 

tradictions are essentially feminine. Perhaps it must be 
confessed that in the unreasonableness of the woman, the 
author has intended to bear more harshly on the sex than 
it deserves. But a true woman will forgive him, because 
of the truth of Lady Castle wood's heart. Her husband 
had been killed in a duel, and there were circumstances 
which had induced her at the moment to quarrel with 
Harry and to be unjust to him. He had been ill, and 
had gone away to the wars, and then she had learned the 
truth, and had been wretched enough. But when he 
comes back, and she sees him, by chance at first, as the 
anthem is being sung in the cathedral choir, as she is say- 
ing her prayers, her heart flows over with tenderness to 
him. " I knew you would come back," she said ; " and 
to-day, Henry, in the anthem when they sang it — * When 
the Lord turned the captivity of Zion we were like them 
that dream ' — I thought, yes, like them that dream — them 
that dream. And then it went on, * They that sow in 
tears shall reap in joy, and he that goeth forth and weep- 
eth shall doubtless come home again with rejoicing, bring- 
ing his sheaves with him.' I looked up from the book 
and saw you. I was not surprised when I saw you. I 
knew you would come, my dear, and saw the gold sun- 
shine round your head." And so it goes on running into 
expressions of heart-melting tenderness. And yet she her- 
self does not know that her own heart is seeking his with 
all a woman's love. She is still willing that he should 
possess Beatrix. " I would call you my son," she says, 
" sooner than the greatest prince in Europe." But she 
warns him of the nature of her own girl. '* 'Tis for my 
poor Beatrix I tremble, whose headstrong will affrights 
me, whose jealous temper, and whose vanity no prayers of 
mine can cure." It is but very gradually that Esmond 



v.] BSMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS. 129 

becomes aware of the truth. Indeed, he has not become 
altogether aware of it till the tale closes. The reader does 
not see that transfer of aifection from the daughter to the 
mother which would fail to reach his sympathy. In the 
last page of the last chapter it is told that it is so — that 
Esmond marries Lady Castle wood — but it is not told till 
all the incidents of the story have been completed. 

But of the three characters I have named, Beatrix is the 
one that has most strongly exercised the writer's powers, 
and will most interest the reader. As far as outward per- 
son is concerned, she is very lovely — so charming that ev- 
ery man that comes near to her submits himself to her at- 
tractions and caprices. It is but rarely that a novelist can 
succeed in impressing his reader with a sense of female 
loveliness. The attempt is made so frequently — comes so 
much as a matter of course in every novel that is written, 
and fails so much as a matter of course, that the reader 
does not feel the failure. There are things which w^e do 
not expect to have done for us in literature, because they 
are done so seldom. Novelists are apt to describe the ru- 
ral scenes among which their characters play their parts, 
but seldom leave any impression of the places described. 
Even in poetry how often does this occur? The words 
used are pretty, well chosen, perhaps musical to the ear, 
and in that way befitting ; but unless the spot has violent 
characteristics of its own, such as Burley's cave or the wa- 
terfall of Lodore, no striking portrait is left. Nor are we 
disappointed as we read, because we have not been taught 
to expect it to be otherwise. So it is with those word- 
painted portraits of women, which are so frequently given 
and so seldom convey any impression. Who has an idea 
of the outside look of Sophia Western, or Edith Bellen- 
den, or even of Imogen, though lachimo, who described 



130 THACKERAY. [chap. 

her, was so good at words ? A series of pictures — illustra- 
tions — as we have with Dickens' novels, and w^ith Thack- 
eray's, may leave an impression of a figure — though even 
then not often of feminine beauty. But in this work 
Thackeray has succeeded in imbuing us with a sense of 
the outside loveliness of Beatrix by the mere force of 
words. We are not only told it, but we feel that she was 
such a one as a man cannot fail to covet, even when his 
judgment goes against his choice. 

Here the judgment goes altogether against the choice. 
The girl grows up before us from her early youth till her 
twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year, and becomes — such as 
her mother described her — one whose headlong will, whose 
jealousy, and whose vanity nothing could restrain. She 
has none of those soft foibles, half allied to virtues, by 
which weak women fall away into misery or perhaps dis- 
traction. She does not want to love or to be loved. She 
does not care to be fondled. She has no longing for ca- 
resses. She wants to be admired — and to make use of 
the admiration she shall achieve for the material purposes 
of her life. She wishes to rise in the world*; and her 
beauty is the sword with which she must open her oysters 
As to her heart, it is a thing of which she becomes aware, 
only to assure herself that it must be laid aside and put 
out of the question. Now and again Esmond touches it. 
She just feels that she has a heart to be touched. But she 
never has a doubt as to her conduct in that respect. She 
will not allow her dreams of ambition to be disturbed by 
such folly as love. 

In all that there might be something, if not good and 
great, nevertheless grand, if her ambition, though worldly, 
had in it a touch of nobility. But this poor creature is 
made with her bleared blind eyes to fall into the very 



v.] ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS. 131 

lowest depths of feminine ignobility. One lover comes 
after another. Harry Esmond is, of course, the lover with 
whom the reader interests himself. At last there comes 
a duke — fifty years old, indeed, but with semi-royal appa- 
nages. As his wife she will become a duchess, with many 
diamonds, and be Her Excellency. The man is stern, cold, 
and jealous ; but she does not doubt for a moment. She 
is to be Duchess of Hamilton, and towers already in pride 
of place above her mother, and her kinsman lover, ^nd all 
her belongings. The story here, with its little incidents 
of birth, and blood, and ignoble pride, and gratified ambi- 
tion, with a dash of true feminine nobility on the part of 
the girl's mother, is such as to leave one with the impres- 
sion that it has hardly been beaten in English prose fic- 
tion. Then, in the last moment, the duke is killed in a 
duel, and the news is brought to the girl by Esmond. 
She turns upon him and rebukes him harshly. Then she 
moves away, and feels in a moment that there is nothing 
left for her in this world, and that she can only throw her- 
self upon devotion for consolation. '' I am best in my 
own room and by myself," she said. Her eyes were quite 
dry, nor did Esmond ever see them otherwise, save oace, 
in respect of that grief. She gave him a cold hand as she 
went out. *' Thank you, brother," she said in a low voice, 
and with a simplicity more touching than tears ; " all that 
you have said is true and kind, and I will go away and 
will ask pardon." 

But the consolation coming from devotion did not go 
far with such a one as her. We cannot rest on religion 
merely by saying that we will do so. Very speedily there 
comes consolation in another form. Queen Anne is on 
her deathbed, and a young Stuart prince appears upon 
the scene, of whom some loyal hearts dream that they 



182 THACKERAY. [chap. 

can make a king. He is such as Stuarts were, and only 
walks across the novelist's canvas to show his folly and 
heartlessness. But there is a moment in which Beatrix 
thinks that she may rise in the world to the proud place 
of a royal mistress. That is her last ambition ! That is 
her pride ! That is to be her glory ! The bleared eyes 
can see no clearer than that. But the mock prince passes 
away, and nothing but the disgrace of the wish remains. 

Such is the story of Esmond^ leaving with it, as does 
all Thackeray's work, a melancholy conviction of the van- 
ity of all things human. Vanitas vanitatum, as he wrote 
on the pages of the French lady's album, and again in one 
of the earlier numbers of The Cornhill Magazine. With 
much that is picturesque, much that is droll, much that 
is valuable as being a correct picture of the period select- 
ed, the gist of the book is melancholy throughout. It 
ends with the promise of happiness to come, but that is 
contained merely in a concluding paragraph. The one 
woman, during the course of the story, becomes a widow, 
with a living love in which she has no hope, with children 
for whom her fears are almost stronger than her affection, 
who never can rally herself to happiness for a moment. 
The other, with all her beauty and all her brilliance, be- 
comes what we have described — and marries at last her 
brother's tutor, who becomes a bishop by means of her 
intrigues. Esmond, the hero, who is compounded of all 
good gifts, after a childhood and youth tinged throughout 
with melancholy, vanishes from us, with the promise that 
he is to be rewarded by the hand of the mother of the 
girl he has loved. 

And yet there is not a page in the book over which a 
thoughtful reader cannot pause with delight. The nature 
in it is true nature. Given a story thus sad, and persons 



v.] ESMONB AND THE VIRGINIANS. • 133 

thus situated, and it is thus that the details would follow 
each other, and thus that the people would conduct them- 
selves. It was the tone of Thackeray's mind to turn away 
from the prospect of things joyful, and to see — or believe 
that he saw — in all human affairs, the seed of something 
base, of something which would be antagonistic to true 
contentment. All his snobs, and all his fools, and all his 
knaves, come from the same conviction. Is it not the 
doctrine pn which our religion is founded — though the 
sadness of it there is alleviated by the doubtful promise 
of a heaven ? 

Though thrice a thousand years are passed 
Since David's son, the sad and splendid, 

The weary king ecclesiast 

Upon his awful tablets penned it. 

So it was that Thackeray preached his sermon. But 
melancholy though it be, the lesson taught in Esmond 
is salutary from beginning to end. The sermon truly 
preached is that glory can only come from that which is 
truly glorious, and that the results of meanness end al- 
ways in the mean. No girl will be taught to wish to shine 
like Beatrix, nor wall any youth be made to think that to 
gain the love of such a one it can be worth his while to 
expend his energy or his heart. , 

Esmond was published in 1852. It was not till 1858, 
some time after he had returned from his lecturing tours, 
that he published the sequel called The Virginians, It 
was first brought out in twenty -four monthly numbers, 
and ran through the y^ars 1858 and 1859, Messrs. Brad- 
bury and Evans having been the publishers. It takes up 
by no means the story of Esmond, and hardly the charac- 
ters. The twin lads, who are called the Virginians, and 



134 THACKERAY. [cttAP. 

whose name is Warrington, are grandsons of Esmond and 
his wife Lady Castlewood. Their one daughter, born at 
the estate in Virginia, had married a Warrington, and the 
Virginians are the issue of that marriage. In the story, 
one is sent to England, there to make his way ; and the 
other is for awhile supposed to have been killed by the In- 
dians. How he was not killed, but after awhile comes 
again forward in the world of fiction, will be found in the 
story, which it is not our purpose to set forth here. The 
most interesting part of the narrative is that which tells 
us of the later fortunes of Madame Beatrix — the Baroness 
Bernstein — the lady who had in her youth been Beatrix 
Esmond, who had then condescended to become Mrs. 
Tusher, the tutor's wife, whence she rose to be the " lady " 
of a bishop, and, after the bishop had been put to rest 
under a load of marble, had become the baroness — a rich 
old woman, courted by all her relatives because of her 
wealth. 

In The Virginians^ as a work of art, is discovered, more 
strongly than had shown itself yet in any of his works, 
that propensity to wandering which came to Thackeray 
because of his idleness. It is, I think, to be found in 
every book he ever wrote — except Esmond ; but is here 
more conspicuous than it had been in his earlier years. 
Though he can settle himself down to his pen and ink — 
not always even to that without a struggle, but to that 
with sufficient burst of energy to produce a large average 
amount of work — he cannot settle himself down to the 
task of contriving a story. There have been those — 
and they have not been bad judges of literature — who 
have told me that they have best liked these vague nar- 
ratives. The mind of the man has been clearly exhibited 
in them. In them he has spoken out his thoughts, and 



v.] . ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS. 135 

given the world to know his convictions, as well as could 
have been done in the carrying; out any well-conducted 
plot. And though the narratives be vague, the characters 
are alive. In The Virginians^ the two young men and 
their mother, and the other ladies with whom they have 
to deal, and especially their aunt, the Baroness Bernstein, 
are all alive. For desultory reading, for that picking up 
of a volume now and again which requires permission to 
forget the plot of a novel, this novel is admirably adapted. 
There is not a page of it vacant or dull. But he who 
takes it up to read as a whole, will find that it is the work 
of a desultory writer, to whom it is not unfrequently dif- 
ficult to remember the incidents of his own narrative. 
" How good it is, even as it is 1 — but if he would have 
done his best for us, what might he not have done !" This, 
I think, is what we feel when we read The Virginians, 
The author's mind has in one way been active enough — 
and powerful, as it always is ; but he has been unable to 
fix it to an intended purpose, and has gone on from day 
to day furthering the difficulty he has intended to mas- 
ter, till the book, under the stress of circumstances — de- 
mands for copy and the like — has been completed before 
the difficulty has even in truth been encountered. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Thackeray's burlesques. 

As so niucli of Thackeray's writing partakes of the nature 
of burlesque, it wouhl have been unnecessary to devote a 
separate chapter to the subject, were it not that there are 
among his tales two or three so exceedingly good of their 
kind, coming so entirely up to our idea of what a prose 
burlesque should be, that were I to omit to mention them 
I should pass over a distinctive portion of our author's 
work. 

The volume called Burlesques, \)nh\h]ied in 1869, begins 
with the Novels by Eminent Hands, and J earnests Diary, 
to which I have already alluded. It contains also Tht 
Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan, A Legend of 
the Rhine, and Rebecca and Rowena, It is of these that 
I will now speak. The History of the Next French Revo- 
lution and Cox^s Diary, with which the volume is con- 
cluded, are, according to my thinking, hardly equal to the 
others ; nor are they so properly called burlesques. 

Nor will I say much of Major Gahagan, though his ad- 
ventures are very good fun. He is a warrior — that is, of 
course — and he is one in whose wonderful narrative all 
that distant India can produce in the way of boasting, 
is superadded to Ireland's best efforts in the same line. 
Baron Munchausen was nothing to him ; and to the bare 



CHAP. VI.] THACKERAY'S BURLESQUES. 137 

and simple miracles of the baron is joined that humour 
without which Thackeray never tells any story. This is 
broad enough, no doubt, but is still humour — as when the 
major tells us that he always kept in his own apartment a 
small store of gunpowder ; " always keeping it under my 
bed, with a candle burning for fear of accidents." Or 
when he describes his courage ; " I was running — running 
as the brave stag before the hounds — running, as I have 
done a great number of times in my life, when there w^as 
no help for it but a run." Then he tells us of his diges- 
tion. *' Once in Spain I ate the leg of a horse, and was so 
eager to swallow this morsel, that I bolted the shoe as well 
as the hoof, and never felt the slightest inconvenience 
from either." He storms a citadel, and has only a snuff- 
box given him for his reward. " Never mind," says Ma- 
jor Gahagan ; *' when they want me to storm a fort again, 
I shall know better." By which we perceive that the ma- 
jor remembered his Horace, and had in his mind the sol- 
dier who had lost his purse. But the major's adventures, 
excellent as they are, lack the continued interest which is 
attached to the two following stories. 

Of what nature is The Legend of the Rhine^ we leani 
from the commencement: ''It was in the good old days 
of chivalry, when every mountain that bathes its shadow 
in the Rhine had its castle ; not inhabited as now by a few 
rats and owls, nor covered with moss and wallflowers and 
funguses and creeping ivy. No, no; where the ivy now 
clusters there grew strong portcullis and bars of steel ; 
where the wallflowers now quiver in the ramparts there 
were silken banners embroidered with wonderful heraldry ; 
men-at-arms marched where now you shall only see a bank 
of moss or a hideous black champignon ; and in place of 
the rats and owlets, I warrant me there were ladies and 



188 THACKERAY. [chap. 

knights to revel in the great halls, and to feast and dance, 
and to make love there." So that we know well before- 
hand of what kind will this story be. It will be pure ro- 
mance — burlesqued. " Ho seneschal, fill me a cup of hot 
liquor ; put sugar in it, good fellow ; yea, and a little hot 
water — but very little, for my soul is sad as I think of 
those days and knights of old." 

A knight is riding alone on his war-horse, with all his 
armour with him — and his luggage. His rank is shown 
by the name on his portmanteau, and his former address 
and present destination by a card which was attached. It 
had run, " Count Ludwig de Hombourg, Jerusalem, but the 
name of the Holy City had been dashed out with the pen, 
and that of Godesberg substituted." " By St. Hugo of 
Katzenellenbogen," said the good knight, shivering, " 'tis 
colder here than at Damascus. Shall I be at Godesberg 
in time for dinner ?" He has come to see his friend 
Count Karl, Margrave of Godesberg. 

But at Godesberg everything is in distress and sorrow. 
There is a new inmate there, one Sir Gottfried, since whose 
arrival the knight of the castle has become a wretched 
man, having been taught to believe all evils of his wife, 
and of his child Otto, and a certain stranger, one Hilde- 
brandt. Gottfried, we see with half an eye, has done it 
all. It is in vain that Ludwig de Hombourg tells his old 
friend Karl that this Gottfried is a thoroughly bad fel- 
low, that he had been found to be a card -sharper in the 
Holy Land, and had been drummed out of his regiment. 
"'Twas but some silly quarrel over the wine -cup," says 
Karl. " Hugo de Brodenel would have no black bottle on 
the board." We think we can remember the quarrel of 
" Brodenel " and the black bottle, though so many things 
have taken place since that. 



Yi] THACKEKAY'8 BURLESQUES. 189 

There is a festival in the castle, and Hildebrandt comes 
with the other guests. Then Ludwig's attention is called 
by poor Karl, the father, to a certain family likeness. Can 
it be that he is not the father of his own child? He is 
playing cards with his friend Ludwig when that traitor 
Gottfried comes and whispers to him, and makes an ap- 
pointment. " I will be there too," thought Count Lud- 
wig, the good Knight of Hombourg. 

On the next morning, before the stranger knight had 
shaken off his slumbers, all had been found out and every- 
thing done. The lady had been sent to a convent and her 
son to a monastery. The knight of the castle has no com- 
fort but in his friend Gottfried, a distant cousin who is to 
inherit everything. All this is told to Sir Ludwig — who 
immediately takes steps to repair the mischief. "A cup 
of coffee straight," says he to the servitors. " Bid the 
cook pack me a sausage and bread in paper, and the groom 
saddle Streithengst. We have far to ride." So this re- 
dresser of wrongs starts off, leaving the Margrave in his 
grief. 

Then there is a great fight between Sir Ludwig and Sir 
Gottfried, admirably told in the manner of the later chron- 
iclers — a hermit sitting by and describing everything al- 
most as well as Rebecca did on the tower. Sir Ludwig 
being in the right, of course gains the day. But the es- 
cape of the fallen knight's horse is the cream of this chap- 
ter^ " Away, ay, away ! — away amid the green vineyards 
and golden cornfields ; away up the steep mountains, where 
he frightened the eagles in their eyries; away down the 
clattering ravines, where the flashing cataracts tumble ; 
away through the dark pine -forests, where the hungry 
wolves are howling; away over the dreary wolds, where 

the wild wind walks alone ; away through the splashing 
K 



140 THACKERAY. [chap. 

quagmires, where the will -o'- the wisp slunk frightened 
among the reeds ; away through light and darkness, storm 
and sunshine ; away by tower and town, highroad and 
hamlet. . . . Brave horse ! gallant steed ! snorting child of 
Araby ! On went the horse, over mountains, rivers, turn- 
pikes, applewomen ; and never stopped until he reached a 
livery -stable in Cologne, where his master was accustomed 
to put him up !" 

The conquered knight, Sir Gottfried, of course reveals 
the truth. This Hildebrandt is no more than the lady's 
brother — as it happened a brother in disguise — and hence 
the likeness. Wicked knights, when they die, always di- 
vulge their wicked secrets,' and this knight Gottfried does 
so now. Sir Ludwig carries the news home to the afflict- 
ed husband and father ; who of course instantly sends off 
messengers for his wife and son. The wife won't come. 
All she wants is to have her dresses and jewels sent to her. 
Of so cruel a husband she has had enough. As for the 
son, he has jumped out of a boat on the Rhine, as he was 
being carried to his monastery, and was drowned ! 

But he was not drowned, but had only dived. "The 
gallant boy swam on beneath the water, never lifting his 
head for a single moment between Godesberg and Cologne ; 
the distance being twenty-five or thirty miles." 

Then he becomes an archer, dressed in green from head 
to foot. How it was is all told in the story ; and he goes 
to shoot for a prize at the Castle of Adolf the Duke of 
Cleeves. On his way he shoots a raven marvellously — al- 
most as marvellously as did Robin Hood the twig in Ivan- 
hoe. Then one of his companions is married, or nearly 
married, to the mysterious " Lady of Windeck " — would 
have been married but for Otto, and that the bishop and 
dean, who were dragged up from their long-ago graves to 



n.] THACKERAY'S BURLESQUES. 141 

perform the ghostly ceremony, were prevented by the ill- 
timed mirth of a certain old canon of the church named 
Schidnisclimidt. The reader has to read the name out 
loud before be recognizes an old friend. But this of the 
Lady of Windeck is an episode. 

How at the shooting - match, which of course ensued, 
Otto shot for and won the heart of a fair lady, the duke's 
daughter, need not be told here, nor how he quarrelled 
with the Rowski of Donnerblitz — the hideous and sulky, 
but rich and powerful, nobleman who had come to take 
the hand, whether he could win the heart or not, of the 
daughter of the duke. It is all arranged according to the 
proper and romantic order. Otto, though he enlists in 
the duke's archer-guard as simple soldier, contrives to fight 
with the Rowski de Donnerblitz, Margrave of Eulenschren- 
kenstein, and of course kills him. " ^ Yield, yield. Sir 
Rowski !' shouted he, in a calm voice. A blow dealt mad- 
ly at his head was the reply. It was the last blow that the 
Count of Eulenschrenken stein ever struck in battle. The 
curse was on his lips as the crashing steel descended into 
his brain and split it in two. He rolled like a dog from 
his horse, his enemy's knee was in a moment on his chest, 
and the dagger of mercy at his throat, as the knight once 
more called upon him to yield." The knight was of 
course the archer who had come forward as an unknown 
champion, and had touched the Rowski's shield with the 
point of his lance. For this story, as well as the rest, is 
a burlesque on our dear old favourite Ivanhoe. 

That everything goes right at last, that the wife comes 
back from her monastery, and joins her jealous husband, 
and that the duke's daughter has always, in truth, known 
that the poor archer was a noble knight — these things are 
all matters of course. 



Ua THACKERAY. [chap. 

But the best of the three burlesques i& Rebecca and 
Rowena^ or A Romance upon Romance^ which I need not 
tell my readers is a continuation of Ivanhoe, Of this bur- 
lesque it is the peculiar characteristic that, while it has been 
written to ridicule the persons and the incidents of that 
perhaps the most favourite novel in the English language, 
it has been so written that it would not have offended the 
author had he lived to read it, nor does it disgust or annoy 
^hose who most love the original. There is not a word 
in it having an intention to belittle Scott. It has sprung 
from the genuine humour created in Thackeray's mind by 
his aspect of the romantic. We remember how reticent, 
how dignified was Rowena — how cold we perhaps thought 
her, whether there was so little of that billing and cooing, 
that kissing and squeezing, between her and Ivanhoe which 
we used to think necessary to lovers' blisses. And there 
was left, too, on our minds an idea that Ivanhoe had liked 
the Jewess almost as well as Rowena, and that Rowena 
might possibly have become jealous. Thackeray's mind 
at once went to work and pictured to him a Rowena such 
as such a woman might become after marriage; and as 
Ivanhoe was of a melancholy nature and apt to be hipped, 
and grave, and silent, as a matter of course Thackeray pre- 
sumes him to have been* henpecked after his marriage. 

Our dear Wamba disturbs his mistress in some devo- 
tional conversation with her chaplain, and the. stern lady 
orders that the fool shall have three-dozen lashes. *' I got 
you out of Front de Boeuf 's castle," said poor Wamba, 
piteously appealing to Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, " and canst 
thou not save me from the lash ?" 

**Yes; from Front de Boeuf 's castle, when you were 
locJced up with the Jewess in the tower P'* said Rowena, 
haughtily replying to the timid appeal of her husband. 



vi.j THACKERAY^S BUHLEgQUHS. 143 

"Gurtb, give liim four- dozen" — and this was all poor 
Wamba got by applying for the mediation of his master. 
Then the satirist moralises : " Did you ever know a right- 
minded woman pardon another for being handsomer and 
more love - worthy than herself ?" Rowena is " always 
flinging Rebecca into Ivanhoe's teeth ;" and altogether life 
at Rotherwood, as described by the later chronicles, is not 
very happy even when most domestic. Ivanhoe becomes 
sad and moody. He takes to drinking, and his lady does 
not forget to tell him of it. " Ah, dear axe !" he exclaims, 
apostrophising* his weapon, " ah, gentle steel ! that was a 
merry time when I sent thee crashing into the pate of the 
Emir Abdul Melek !" There was nothing left to him but 
his memories ; and " in a word, his life was intolerable." 
So he determines that he will go and look after King 
Richard, who of course was wandering abroad. He antici- 
pates a little difficulty with his wife ; but she is only too 
happy to let him go, comforting herself with the idea that 
Athelstane will look after her. So her husband starts on 
his journey. " Then Ivanhoe's trumpet blew. Then Row- 
ena waved her pocket-handkerchief. Then the household 
gave a shout. Then the pursuivant of the good knight, 
Sir Wilfrid the Crusader, flung out his banner — which 
was argent, a gules cramoisy with three Moors impaled — 
then Wamba gave a lash on his mule's haunch, and Ivan- 
hoe, heaving a great sigh, turned the tail of his war-horse 
upon the castle of his fathers." 

Ivanhoe finds Coeur de Leon besieging the Castle of 
Chalons, and there they both do wondrous deeds, Ivanhoe 
always surpassing the king. The jealousy of the courtiers, 
the ingratitude of the king, and the melancholy of the 
knight, who is never comforted except when he has slaugh- 
tered some hundreds, are delightful. Roger de Backbite 



144 THACKERAY. [chap. 

and Peter de Toadhole are intended to be quite real. Then 
his majesty sings, passing off as his own a song of Charles 
Lev.er's. Sir Wilfrid declares the truth, and twits the king 
with his falsehood, whereupon he has the guitar thrown at 
his head for his pains. He catches the guitar, however, 
gracefully in his left hand, and sings his own immortal 
ballad of King Canute — than which Thackeray never did 
anything better. 

" Might I stay the sun above us, good Sir Bishop ?" Canute cried ; 
" Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride ? 
If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide. 

Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the sign V 
Said the bishop, bowing lowly : " Land and sea, my lord, are thine." 
Canute turned towards the ocean : " Back," he.said, " thou foaming 
brine." 

But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar, 

And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling, sounding on the shore ; 

Back the keeper and the bishop, back the king and courtiers bore. 

We must go to the book to look at the picture of the 
king as he is killing the youngest of the sons of the 
Count of Chalons. Those illustrations of Doyle's are ad- 
mirable. The size of the king's head, and the size of his 
battle-axe as contrasted with the size of the child, are bur- 
lesque all over. But the king has been wounded by a 
bolt from the bow of Sir Bertrand de Gourdon while he 
is slaughtering the infant, and there is an end of him. 
Ivanhoe, too, is killed at the siege — Sir Roger de Backbite 
having stabbed him in the back during the scene. Had 
he not been then killed, his widow Rowena could not have 
married Athelstane, which she soon did after hearing the 
sad new^s; nor could he have had that celebrated epitaph 
in Latin and English : 



VI.] THACKERAY'S BURLESQUES. 145 

Hie est Guilf ridus, belli dum vixit avidus. 
Cum gladeo et lancea Normannia et quoque Francia 
Verbera dura dabat. Per Turcos multura equitabat. 
Guilbertum occidit ; — atque Hyerosolyma vidit. 
Heu ! nunc sub fossa sunt tanti militis ossa. 
Uxor Athelstani est conjux castissima Thani.^ 

The translation, we are told, was by Wamba : 

Under the stone you behold, Brian, the Templar untrue, 

Buried and coffined and cold. Fairly in tourney he slew ; 

Lieth Sir Wilfrid the Bold. Saw Hierusalem too. 

Always he marched in advance, Now he is buried and gone, 

Warring in Flanders and France, Lying beneath the gray stone. 

Doughty with sword and with Where shall you find such a 
lance. one ? 

Famous in Saracen fight. Long time his widow deplored. 

Rode in his youth, the Good Weeping, the fate of her lord, 

Knight, Sadly cut off by the sword. 
Scattering Paynims in flight. 

When she was eased of her pain, 
Came the good lord Athelstane, 
When her ladyship married again. 

The next chapter begins naturally as follows : " I trust 
nobody will suppose, from the events described in the last 
chapter, that our friend Ivanhoe is really dead." He is of 
course cured of his wounds, though they take six years in 
the curing. And then he makes his way back to Rother- 
wood, in a friar's disguise, much as he did on that former 

^ I doubt that Thackeray did not write the Latin epitaph, but I 
hardly dare suggest the name of any author. The " vixit avidus " 
is quite worthy of Thackeray ; but had he tried his hand at such 
mode of expression he would have done more of it. I should like to 
know whether he had been in company with Father Prout at the time. 

7* 



146 THACKERAY. [chap. 

occasion when we first met him, and there is received by 
Athelstane and Rowena — and their boy ! — while Wamba 
sings him a song : 

Then you know the worth of a lass, 
Once you have come to forty year ! 

No one, of course, but Wamba knows Ivanhoe, who 
roams about the country, melancholy — as he of course 
would be — charitable — as he perhaps might be — for we 
are specially told that he had a large fortune and nothing 
to do with it, and slaying robbers wherever he met them — 
but sad at heart all the time. Then there comes a little 
burst of the author's own feelings, while he is burlesquing. 
"Ah my dear friends and British public, are there not oth- 
ers who are melancholy under a mask of gaiety, and who 
in the midst of crowds are lonely ? Liston was a most 
melancholy man ; Grimaldi had feelings ; and then others 
I wot of. But psha ! — let us have the next chapter." In 
all of which there was a touch of earnestness. 

Ivanhoe's griefs were enhanced by the wickedness of 
King John, under whom he would not serve. " It was Sir 
Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, I need scarcely say, who got the Bar- 
ons of England to league too^ether and extort from the 
king that famous instrument and palladium of our liber- 
ties, at present in the British Museum, Great Russell Street, 
Bloom sbury — The Magna Charta." Athelstane also quar- 
rels with the king, whose orders he disobeys, and Rother- 
wood is attacked by the royal army. No one was of real 
service in the way of fighting except Ivanhoe — and how 
could he take up that cause? "No; be hanged to me," 
said the knight, bitterly. " This is a quarrel in which I 
can't interfere. Common politeness forbids. Let yonder 
ale-swilling Athelstane defend his — ha, ha ! — wife; and 



VI.] THACKERAY'S BURLESQUES. 147 

my Lady Rowena guard her — ha, ha ! — son H and he 
laughed wildly and madly. 

But Athelstane is killed^— this time in earnest — and then 
Ivanhoe rushes to the rescue. He finds Gurth dead at the 
park-lodge ; and though he is ail alone — having out ridden 
his followers — he rushes up the chestnut avenue to the 
house, which is being attacked. "An Ivanhoe! an Ivan- 
hoe !" he bellowed out with a shout that overcame all the 
din of battle ; — '* Notre Dame a la recousse !" and to hurl 
his lance through the midriff of Reginald de Bracy, who 
was commanding the assault — who fell howling with an- 
guish — to wave his battle-axe over his own head, and to 
cut off those of thirteen men-at-arms, was the work of an 
instant. "An Ivanhoe! an Ivanhoe!" he still shouted, 
and down went a man as sure as he said " hoe !" 

Nevertheless he is again killed by multitudes, or very 
nearly — and has again to be cured by the tender nursing 
of Wamba. But Athelstane is really dead, and Rowena 
and the boy have to be found. He does his duty and 
finds them — just in time to be present at Rowena's death. 
She has been put in prison by King John, and is in ex- 
tremis when her first husband gets to her. " Wilfrid, my 
early loved,"^ slowly gasped she, removing her gray hair 
from her furrowed temples, and gazing on her boy fondly 
as he nestled on Ivanhoe's knee — "promise me by St.Wal- 
theof of Templestowe — promise me one boon !" 

"I do," said Ivanhoe, clasping the boy, and thinking 
that it was to that little innocent that the promise was 
intended to apply. 

* There is something almost illnatured in his treatment of Rowena, 
who is very false in her declarations of love ; — and it is to be feared 
that by Rowena the author intends the normal married lady of Eng- 
lish society. 



• 



148 THACKERAY. [chap. 

'*By StWaltheof?" 

"By StWaltheofr * 

" Promise me, then," gasped Rowena, staring wildly at 
him, " that you will never marry a Jewess !" 

"By St. Waltheof!" cried Ivanhoe, "but this is too 
much," ^nd he did not make the promise. 

"Having placed young Cedric at school at the Hall of 
Dotheboys, in Yorkshire, and arranged his family affairs. 
Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe quitted a country which had no 
longer any charm for him, as there was no fighting to be 
done, and in which his stay was rendered less agreeable 
by the notion that King John would hang him." So he 
goes forth and fights again, in league with the Knights of 
St. John — the Templars naturally having a dislike to him 
because of Brian de Bois Guilbert. " The only fault that 
the great and gallant, though severe and ascetic Folko of 
Heydenbraten, the chief of the Order of St. John, found 
with the melancholy warrior whose lance did such service 
to the cause, was that he did not persecute the Jews as 
so religious a knight should. So the Jews, in cursing the 
Christians, always excepted the name of the Desdichado 
■ — or the double disinherited, as he now was — the Des- 
dichado Doblado." Then came the battle of Alarcos, and 
the Moors were all but in possession of the whole of 
Spain. Sir Wilfrid, like other good Christians, cannot en- 
dure this, so he takes ship in Bohemia, where he happens 
to be quartered, and has himself carried to Barcelona, and 
proceeds " to slaughter the Moors forthwith." Then there 
is a scene in which Isaac of York comes on as a messen- 
ger, to ransom from a Spanish knight, Don Beltram de 
Cuchilla y Trabuco, y Espada, y Espelon, a little Moorish 
girl. The Spanish knight of course murders the little girl 
instead of takino- the ransom. Two hundred thousand 



VI.] THACKERAY'S BURLESQUES. 149 

dirhems are offered, however much that may be ; but the 
knight, who happens to be in funds at the time, prefers to 
kill the little girl. All this is only necessary to the story 
as introducing Isaac of York. Sir Wilfrid is of course 
intent upon finding Rebecca. Through all his troubles 
and triumphs, from his gaining and his losing of Row- 
ena, from the day on which he had been '' locked up with 
the Jewess in the tower^'* he had always been true to her. 
"Away from me!" said the old Jew, tottering. "Away, 
Rebecca is — dead I" Then Iv^anhoe goes out and kills 
fifty thousand Moors, and there is the picture of him- — 
killing them. 

But Rebecca is not dead at all. Her father had said 
so because Rebecca had behaved very badly to him. She 
had refused to marry the Moorish prince, or any of her 
own people, the Jews, and had gone as far as to declare 
her passion for Ivanhoe and her resolution to be a 
Christian. All the Jews and Jewesses in Valencia turned 
against her — so that she was locked up in the back-kitchen 
and almost starved to death. But Ivanhoe found her, of 
course, and makes her Mrs. Ivanhoe, or Lady Wilfrid the 
second. Then Thackeray tells us how for many years he, 
Thackeray, had not ceased to feel that it ought to be so. 
" Indeed I have thought of it any time these five-and-twen- 
ty years — ever since, as a boy at school, I commenced the 
noble study of novels — ever since the day w^hen, lying on 
sunny slopes, of half -holidays, the fair chivalrous figures 
and beautiful shapes of knights and ladies were visible to 
me, ever since I grew to love Rebecca, that sweetest creat- 
ure of the poet's fancy, and longed to see her righted." 

And so, no doubt, it had been. The very burlesque 
had grown from the way in which his young imagination 
had been moved by Scott's romance. He had felt, from 



150 . THACKERAY. [chap. vi. 

the time of those happy half-holidays in which he had 
been lucky enough to get hold of the novel, that according 
to all laws of poetic justice, Rebecca, as being the more 
beautiful and the more interesting of the heroines, was 
entitled to the possession of the hero. We have all of 
us felt the same. But to him had been present at the 
same time all that is ludicrous in our ideas of middle-age 
chivalry ; the absurdity of its recorded deeds, the blood- 
thirstiness of its recreations, the selfishness of its men, the 
falseness of its honour, the cringing of its loyalty, the 
tyranny of its princes. And so there came forth Rebecca 
and Rowena, all broad fun from beginning to end, but 
never without a purpose — the best burlesque, as I think, 
in our language. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Thackeray's lectures. 



In speating of Thackeray's life, I have said why and how 
it was that he took upon himself to lecture, and have also 
told the reader that he was altogether successful in carry- 
ing out the views proposed to himself. Of his peculiar 
manner of lecturing I have said but little, never having 
heard him. "He pounded along — very clearly," I have 
been told ; from which I surmise that there was no special 
grace of eloquence, but that he was always audible. I 
cannot imagine that he should have been ever eloquent. 
He could not have taken the trouble necessary with his 
voice, with his cadences, or with his outward appearance. 
I imagine that they who seem so naturally to fall into the 
proprieties of elocution have generally taken a great deal 
of trouble beyond that which the mere finding of their 
words has cost them. It is clearly to the matter of what 
he then gave the world, and not to the manner, that we 
must look for what interest is to be found in the lectures. 
Those on The English Humorists were given first. 
The second set was on The Four Georges. In the vol- 
ume now before us The Georges are printed first, and the 
whole is produced simply as a part of Thackeray's literary 
work. Looked at, however, in that light, the merit of the 
two sets of biographical essays is very different. In the 



152 THACKERAY. [chap. 

one we have all the anecdotes which could be brought to- 
gether respecting four of our kings — who as men were 
not peculiar, though their reigns were, and will always be, 
famous, because the country during the period was in- 
creasing greatly in prosperity, and was ever strengthening 
the hold it had upon its liberties. In the other set the 
lecturer was a man of letters dealing with men of letters, 
and himself a prince among humorists is dealing with the 
humorists of his own country and language. One could 
not imagine a better subject for such discourses from 
Thackeray's mouth than the latter. The former was not, 
I think, so good. 

In discussing the lives of kings the biographer may 
trust to personal details or to historical facts. He may 
take the man, and say what good or evil may be said of 
him as a man ; — or he may take the period, and tell his 
readers what happened to the country while this or the 
other king was on the throne. In the case with which 
we are dealing, the lecturer had not time enough or room 
enough for real history. His object was to let his audi- 
ence know of what nature were the men ; and we are bound 
to say that the pictures have not, on the whole, been flat- 
tering. It was almost necessary that with such a subject 
such should be the result. A story of family virtues, with 
princes and princesses well brought up, with happy family 
relations, all couleur de rose — as it would of course be- 
come us to write if we were dealing with the life of a 
living sovereign — would not be interesting. No one on 
going to hear Thackeray lecture on the Georges expected 
that. There must be some piquancy given, or the lecture 
would be dull ; — and the eulogy of personal virtues can sel- 
dom be piquant. It is difficult to speak fittingly qf a sov- 
ereign, either living or not, long since gone. You can " 



VII.] THACKERAY'S. LECTURES. 153 

hardly praise such a one witliout flattery. You can hardly 
censure Mm without injustice. We are either ignorant of 
his personal doings or we know them as secfets, which 
have been divulged for the most part either falsely or 
treacherously — often both falsely and treacherously. It 
is better, perhaps, that we should not deal with the person- 
alities of princes. 

I believe that Thackeray fancied that he had spoken 
well of George III., and am sure that it was his intention 
to do so. But the impression he leaves is poor. " He is 
said not to have cared for Shakespeare or tragedy much ; 
farces and pantomimes were his joy ; — and especially when 
clown swallowed a carrot or a string of sausages, he would 
laugh so outrageously that the lovely princess by his side 
would have to say, * My gracious monarch, do compose 
yourself.' ' George, be a king !' were the words which 
she " — his mother — " was ever croaking in the ears of her 
son ; and a king the simple, stubborn, affectionate, bigoted 
man tried to be." "He did his best; he worked accord- 
ing to his lights; what virtues he knew he tried to prac- 
tise; what knowledge he could master he strove to ac- 
quire." If the lectures w^ere to be popular, it was abso- 
lutely necessary that they should be written in this strain. 
A lecture simply laudatory on the life of St. Paul would 
not draw even the bench of bishops to listen to it ; but 
were a flaw found in the apostle's life, the whole Church 
of England would be bound to know all about it. I am 
quite sure that Thackeray believed every word that he said 
in the lectures, and that he intended to put in the good 
and the bad, honestly, as they might come to his hand. 
We may be quite sure that he did not intend to flatter the 
royal family ;— equally sure that he would not calumniate. 
There were, however, so many difiiculties to be encounter- 



154 THACKERAY. [chap. 

od that I cannot but think that the subject was ill-chosen. 
In making them so amusing as he did, and so little offen- 
sive, great ingenuity was shown. 

I will now go back to the first series, in which the lect- 
urer treated of Swift, Congreve, Addison, Steele, Prior, 
Gay, Pope, Hogarth, Smollett, Fielding, Sterne, and Gold- 
smith. All these Thackeray has put in their proper order, 
placing the men from the date of their birth, except Prior, 
who was in truth the eldest of the lot, but whom it was 
necessary to depose, in order that the great Swift might 
stand first on the list, and Smollett, who was not born till 
fourteen years after Fielding, eight years after Sterne, and 
who has been moved up, 1 presume, simply from caprice. 
}<>om the birth of the first to the death of the last, was a 
period of nearly a hundred years. They were never abso- 
lutely all alive together ; bat it was nearly so, Addison 
and Prior having died before Smollett was born. Wheth- 
er we should accept as humorists the full catalogue, may 
be a question ; though we shall hardly wish to eliminate 
any one from such a dozen of names. Pope we should 
hardly define as a humorist, were we to be seeking for a 
definition specially fit for him, though we shall certainly 
not deny the gift of humour to the author of The Rape of 
the Lock^ or to the translator of any portion of The Odys- 
sey, Nor should we have included Fielding or Smollett, 
in spite of Parson Adams and Tabitha Bramble, unless 
anxious to fill a good company. That Hogarth was spe- 
cially a humorist no one will deny ; but in speaking of 
humorists we should have presumed, unless otherwise no- 
tified, that humorists in letters only had been intended. 
As Thackeray explains clearly what he means by a hu- 
morist. I may as well here repeat the passage : "If hu- 
mour only meant laughter, you would scarcely feel more 



VII.] THACKERAY'S LECTURES. 155 

interest about humorous writers than about the private 
life of poor Harlequin just mentioned, who possesses in 
common with these the power of making you laugh. But 
the men regarding whose lives and stories your kind pres- 
ence here shows that you have curiosity and sympathy, 
appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides 
our mere sense of ridicule. The humorous writer pro- 
fesses to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your 
kindness — your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture — 
your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the 
unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he com- 
ments on all the ordinary actions and passions of life al- 
most. He takes upon himself to be the week-day preach- 
er, so to speak. Accordinglf , as he finds, and speaks, and 
feels the truth best, we regard him, esteem him — some- 
times love him. And as his business is to mark other 
people's lives and peculiarities, we moralise upon his life 
when he is gone — and yesterday's preacher becomes the 
text for to-day's sermon." 

Having thus explained his purpose, Thackeray begins 
his task, and puts Swift in his front rank as a humorist. 
The picture given of this great man has very manifestly 
the look of truth, and if true, is terrible indeed. We do, 
in fact, know it to be true — even though it be admitted 
that there is still room left for a book to be written on 
the life of the fearful dean. Here was a man endued with 
an intellect pellucid as well as brilliant ; who could not 
only conceive but see also — with some fine instincts too ; 
whom fortune did not flout; whom circumstances fairly 
served ; but who, from first to last, was miserable himself, 
who made others miserable, and who deserved misery. 
Our business, during the page or two which we can give 
to the subject, is not with Swift, but with Thackeray's 



156 THACKERAY. [chap. 

picture of Swift. It is painted with colours terribly strong 
and with shadows fearfully deep. " Would you like to 
have lived with him?" Thackeray asks. Then he says 
how pleasant it would have been to have passed some time 
with Fielding, Johnson, or Goldsmith. "I should like 
to have been Shakespeare's shoeblack," he says. "But 
Swift! If you had been his inferior in parts — and that, 
with a great respect for all persons present, I fear is only 
very likely — his equal in mere social station, he would 
have bullied, scorned, and insulted you. If, undeterred 
by his great reputation, you had met him like a man, he 
would have quailed before you and not had the pluck to 
reply — and gone home, and years after written a foul epi- 
gram upon you." There is a picture ! " If you had been 
a lord with a blue riband, who flattered his vanity, or could 
help his ambition, he would have been the most delightful 
company in the world. . . . How he would have torn your 
enemies to pieces for you, and made fun of the Opposition ! 
His servility was so boisterous that it looked like inde- 
pendence." He was a man whose mind was never fixed 
on high things, but was striving always after something 
which, little as it might be, and successful as he was, 
should alvvavs be out of his reach. It had been his mis- 
fortune to become a clergyman, because the way to church 
preferment seemed to be the readiest. He became, as we 
all know, a dean — but never a bishop, and was therefore 
wretched. Thackeray describes him as a clerical highway- 
man, seizing on all he could get. But " the great prize 
has not yet come. The coach with the mitre and crozier 
in it, which he intends to have for his share, has been 
delayed on the way from St. James's ; and he waits and 
waits till nightfall, when his runners come and tell him 
that the coach has taken a different way and escaped him. 



vii.J THACKERAY'S LECTUKES. 157 

So he fires his pistol into the air with a curse, and rides 
away into his own country ;" — or, in other words, takes a 
poor deanery in Ireland. 

Thackeray explains very correctly, as I think, the nature 
of the weapons which the man used — namely, the words 
and style with which he wrote. "That Swift was born at 
No. 7, Hoey's Court, Dublin, on November 30, 1667, is a 
certain fact, of which nobody will deny the sister -island 
the honour and glory ; but it seems to me he was no more 
an Irishman than a man born of English parents at Cal- 
cutta is a Hindoo. Goldsmith was an Irishman, and al- 
ways an Irishman ; Steele was an Irishman, and always an 
Irishman ; Swift's heart was English and in England, his 
habits English, his logic eminently English ; his statement 
is elaborately simple ; he shuns tropes and metaphors, and 
uses his ideas and words with a wise thrift and economy, 
as he used his money ; — with which he could be gener- 
ous and splendid upon great occasions, but which he hus- 
banded when there was no need to spend it. He never in- 
dulges in needless extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, 
profuse imagery. He lays his opinions before you with a 
grave simplicity and a perfect neatness." This is quite 
true of him, and the result is that though you may deny 
him sincerity, simplicity, humanity, or good taste, you can 
hardly find fault with his language. 

Swift was a clergyman, and this is what Thackeray says 
of him in regard to his sacred profession. "I know of 
few things more conclusive as to the sincerity of Swift's 
religion, than his advice to poor John Gay to turn clergy- 
man, and look out for a seat on the Bench ! Gay, the au- 
thor of The Beggar's Opera; Gay, the wildest of the wits 
about town ! It was this man that Jonathan Swift ad- 
vised to take orders, to mount in a cassock and bands — ■ 



158 THACKERAY. [chap. 

just as he advised him to husband his shillings, and put 
his thousand pounds out to interest." 

It was not that he was without religion — or without, 
rather, his religious beliefs and doubts, " for Swift," says 
Thackeray, " was a reverent, was a pious spirit. For Swift 
could love and could pray." Left to himself and to the 
natural thoughts of his mind, without those " orders " to 
which he had bound himself as a necessary part of his 
trade, he could have turned to his God with questionings 
which need not then have been heartbreaking. " It is my 
belief," says Thackeray, " that he suffered frightfully from 
the consciousness of his own scepticism, and that he had 
bent his pride so far down as to put his apostasy out to 
hire." I doubt whether any of Swift's works are very 
much read now, but perhaps Gulliver's travels are oftener 
in the hands of modern readers than any other. Of all 
the satires in our language, it is probably the most cynical, 
the most absolutely illnatured, and therefore the falsest. 
Let those who care to form an opinion of Swift's mind 
from the best known of his works, turn to Thackeray's 
account of Gulliver. I can imagine no greater proof of 
misery than to have been able to write such a book as that. 

It is thus that the lecturer concludes his lecture about 
Swift : *' He shrank away from all affections sooner or 
later. Stella and Vanessa both died near him, and away 
from him. He had not heart enough to see them die. 
He broke from his fastest friend, Sheridan. He slunk 
away from his fondest admirer. Pope. His laugh jars on 
one's ear after seven-score years. He was always alone — 
alone and gnashing in the darkness, except when Stella's 
sweet smile came and shone on him. When that went, 
silence and utter night closed over him. An immense 
genius, an awful downfall and ruin ! So great a man he 



til] THACKERAY'S LECTURES. 159 

seems to inc, that thinking of him is like thinking of an 
empire falling. We have other great names to mention — 
none, I think, however, so great or so gloomy." And so 
we pass on from Swift, feeling that though the man was 
certainly a humorist, we have had as yet but little to do 
with humour. 

Congreve is the next who, however truly he may have 
been a humorist, is described here rather as a man o^ 
fashion. A man of fashion he certainly was, but is best 
known in our literature as a comedian — worshipping that 
Comic Muse to whom Thackeray hesitates to introduce his 
audience, because she is not only merry, but shameless also. 
Congreve' s muse was about as bad as any muse that ever 
misbehaved herself — and I think, as little amusing. *^ Read- 
ing in these plays now," says Thackeray, " is like shutting 
your ears and looking at people dancing. What does it 
mean ? — the measures, the grimaces, the bowing, shuffling, 
and retreating, the cavaliers seul advancing upon those la- 
dies — those ladies and men twirling round at the end in 
a mad galop, after which everybody bows and the quaint 
rite is celebrated ?" It is always so with Congreve's plays, 
and Etherege's and Wycherley's. The world we meet 
there is not our world, and as we read the plays we have 
no sympathy with these unknown people. It was not 
that they lived so long ago. They are much nearer to us 
in time than the men and women who figured on the 
stage in the reign of James I. But their nature is farther 
from our nature. They sparkle, but never warm. They 
are witty, but leave no impression. I might almost go 
further, and say that they are wicked, but never allure. 
" When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve," says 
Thackeray, "the latter rather affected to despise his liter- 
ary reputation; and in this, perhaps, the great Congreve 



160 THACKERAY. [chap. 

was not far wrong. A toucli of Steele's tenderness is 
worth all his finery ; a flash of Swift's lightning, a beam 
of Addison's pure sunshine, and his tawdry playhouse 
taper is invisible. But the ladies loved him, and he was 
undoubtedly a pretty fellow." 

There is no doubt as to the true humour of Addison, 
who next comes up before us, but I think that he makes 
hardly so good a subject for a lecturer as the great 
gloomy man of intellect, or the frivolous man of pleasure. 
Thackeray tells us all that is to be said about him as a 
humorist in so few lines that I may almost insert them on 
this page : '* But it is not for his reputation as the great 
author of Cato and The Campaign^ or for his merits as 
Secretary of State, or for his rank and high distinction as 
Lady Warwick's husband, or for his eminence as an ex- 
aminer of political questions on the Whig side, or a guar- 
dian of British liberties, that we admire Joseph Addison. 
It is as a Tattler of small talk and a Spectator of mankind 
that we cherish and love him, and owe as much pleasure 
to him as to any human being that ever wrote. He came 
in that artificial age, and began to speak with his noble 
natural voice. He came the gentle satirist, who hit no un- 
fair blow ; the kind judge, who castigated only in smiling. 
While Swift went about hanging and ruthless, a literary 
Jeffreys, in Addison's kind court only minor cases were 
tried ; — only peccadilloes and small sins against society, 
only a dangerous libertinism in tuckers and hoops, or a 
nuisance in the abuse of beaux canes and snuffboxes." 
Steele set The Taller a-going. "But with his friend's 
discovery of The Tatler^ Addison's calling was found, and 
the most delightful Tattler in the world began to speak. 
He does not go very deep. Let gentlemen of a profound 
genius, critics accustomed to the plunge of the bathos, con- 



TiLl THACKERAY'S LECTURES. 161 

sole themselves by thinking that he couldn't go very deep. 
There is no trace of suffering in his writing. He was so 
good, so honest, so healthy, so cheerfully selfish — if I must 
use the word !" 

Such was Addison as a humorist ; and when the hearer 
shall have heard also — or the reader read — that this most 
charming Tattler also wrote Gato^ became a Secretary of 
State, and married a countess, he will have learned all that 
Thackeray had to tell of him. 

Steele was one who stood much less high in the world's 
esteem, and who left behind' him a much smaller name — 
but was quite Addison's equal as a humorist and a wit. 
Addison, though he had the reputation of a toper, was re- 
spectability itself. Steele was almost always disreputable. 
He was brought from Ireland, placed at the Charter House, 
and then transferred to Oxford, where he became acquaint- 
ed with Addison. Thackeray says that " Steele found Ad- 
dison a stately college don at Oxford."^ The stateliness 
and the don's rank were attributable no doubt to the more 
sober character of the English lad, for, in fact, the two 
men were born in the same year, 1672. Steele, who during 
his life was affected by various different tastes, first turned 
himself to literature, but early in life was bitten by the hue 
of a red coat and became a trooper in the Horse Guards. 
To the end he vacillated in the same way. In that charm- 
ing paper in The Tatler, in which he records his father's 
death, his mother's griefs, his own most solemn and ten- 
der emotions, he says he is interrupted by the arrival of a 
hamper of w^ine, ' the same as is to be sold at Garraway's 
next week ;' upon the receipt of which he sends for three 
friends, and they fall to instantly, drinking two bottles 
apiece, with great benefit to themselves, and not separating 
till two o'clock in the morning." 

s 



162 THACKERAY. [chap. 

He had two wives, whom he loved dearly and treated 
badly. He hired grand houses, and bought fine horses for 
which he could never pay. He was often religious, but 
more often drunk. As a man of letters, other men of let- 
ters who followed him, such as Thackeray, could not be 
very proud of him. But everybody loved him ; and he 
seems to have been the inventor of that flying literature 
which, with "many changes in form and manner, has done 
so much for the amusement and edification of readers ever 
since his time. He was always commencing, or carrying 
on — often editing — some one of the numerous periodicals 
which appeared during his time. Thackeray mentions 
seven : The Tatlei\ The Spectator^ The Guardian^ The Eng- 
lishman^ The Lover ^ The Reader^ and The Theatre ; that 
three of them are w^ell known to this day — the three first 
named — and afe to be found in all libraries, is proof that 
his life was not thrown away. 

I almost question Prior's right to be in the list, unless, 
indeed, the mastery over well-turned conceits is to be in- 
cluded within the border of humour. But Thackeray had 
a strong liking for Prior, and in his ow^n humorous way 
rebukes his audience for not being familiar with The Town 
and Country Mouse, He says that Prior's epigrams have 
the genuine sparkle, and compares Prior to Horace. "His 
song, his philosophy, his good sense, his happy, easy turns 
and melody, his loves and his epicureanism, bear a great 
resemblance to that most delightful and accomplished mas- 
ter." I cannot say that I agree with this. Prior is gen- 
erally neat in his expression. Horace is happy — which is 
surely a great deal more. 

All that is said of Gay, Pope, Hogarth, Smollett, and 
Fielding is worth reading, and may be of great value both 
to those who have not time to study the authors, and to 



VII.] THACKERAY'S LECTURES. 163 

those wlio desire to have their own judgments somewhat 
guided, somewhat assisted. That they were all men of 
humour there can be no doubt. Whether either of them, 
except perhaps Gay, would have been specially ranked as 
a humorist among men of letters, may be a question. 

Sterne was a humorist, and employed his pen in that 
line, if ever a writer did so, and so was Goldsmith. Of 
the excellence and largeness of the disposition of the one, 
and the meanness and littleness of the other, it is not nec- 
essary that I should here say much. But I will give a 
short passage from our author as to each. He has been 
quoting somewhat at length from Sterne, and thus he 
ends: "And with this pretty dance and chorus the vol- 
ume artfully concludes. Even here one can't give the 
whole description. There is not a page in Sterne's writ- 
ing but has something that were better away, a latent cor- 
ruption — a hint as of an impure presence. Some of that 
dreary double entendre may be attributed to freer times 
and manners than ours — but not all. The foul satyr's 
eyes leer out of the leaves constantly. The last words the 
famous author wrote were bad and wicked. The last lines 
the poor stricken wretch penned were for pity and par- 
don." Now a line or two about Goldsmith, and I will 
then let my reader go to the volume and study the lect- 
ures for himself. " The poor fellow was never so friend- 
less but that he could befriend some one ; never so pinched 
and wretched but he could give of his crust, and speak his 
w^ord of compassion. If he had but his flute left, he would 
give that, and make the children happy in the dreary Lon- 
don courts." 

Of this, too, I will remind my readers — those who have 
bookshelves well-filled to adorn their houses — that Gold- 
smith stands in the front where all the young people see 



164 THACKERAY. [chap. yii. 

the volumes. There are few among the young people who 
do not refresh their sense of humour occasionally from 
that shelf; Sterne is relegated to some distant and high 
corner. The less often that he is taken down the better. 
Thackeray makes some half excuse for him because of the 
greater freedom of the times. But " the times " were the 
Bame for the two. Both Sterne and Goldsmith wrote 
in the reign of George II. ; both died in the reign of 
George III. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Thackeray's ballads. 

We have a volume of Thackeray's poems, republished un- 
der the name of Ballads^ which is, I think, to a great extent 
a misnomer. They are all readable, almost all good, full of 
humour, and with some fine touches of pathos, most happy 
in their versification, and, with a few exceptions, hitting 
well on the head the nail which he intended to hit. But 
they are not on that account ballads. Literally, a ballad 
is a song; but it has come to signify a short chronicle in 
verse, which may be political, or pathetic, or grotesque — 
or it may have all three characteristics or any two of them ; 
but not on that account is any grotesque poem a ballad — 
nor, of course, any pathetic or any political poem. Jacob 
Omnmm's Hoss may fairly be called a ballad, containing 
as it does a chronicle of a certain well-defined transaction ; 
and the story of King Canute is a ballad — one of the best 
that has been produced in our language in modern years. 
But such pieces as those called The End of the Play and 
Vanitas Vanitatum^ which are didactic as well as pathetic, 
are not ballads in the common sense ; nor are such songs 
as The Mahogany Tree, or the little collection called Love 
Songs made Easy, The majority of the pieces are not 
ballads; but if they be good of the kind, we should be 
ungrateful to quarrel much with the name. 



166 THACKERAY. [chap. 

How very good most of them are, I did not know till 
I re-read them for the purpose of writing this chapter. 
There is a manifest falling off in some few — which has 
come from that source of literary failure which is now so 
common. If a man write a book or a poem because it is 
in him to write it — the motive power being altogether in 
himself, and coming from his desire to express himself — 
he will write it well, presuming him to be capable of the 
effort. But if he write his book or poem simply because 
a book or poem is required from him, let his capability 
be what it may, it is not unlikely that he will do it badly. 
Thackeray occasionally suffered from the weakness thus 
produced. A ballad from Policeman X — Bow Street Bal- 
lads they were first called — was required by Punchy and 
had to be forthcoming, whatever might be the poet's hu- 
mour, by a certain time. Jacob Omnium's Hoss is excel- 
lent. His heart and feeling were all there, on behalf of 
his friend, and against that obsolete old court of justice. 
But we can tell well when he was looking through the po- 
lice reports for a subject, and taking what chance might 
send him, without any special interest in the matter. The 
Knight and the Lady of Bath, and the Damages Two 
Hundred Pounds, as they were demanded at Guildford, 
taste as though they were written to order. 

Here, in his verses as in his prose, the charm of Thack- 
eray's work lies in the mingling of humour with pathos 
and indignation. There is hardly a piece that is. not more 
or less funny, hardly a piece that is not satirical ; — and in 
most of them, for those who will look a little below the 
surface, there is something that will touch them. Thack- 
eray, though he rarely uttered a word, either with his pen 
or his mouth, in w^hich there was not an intention to reach 
our sense of humour, never was only funny. When he 



viii.] THACKERAY'S BALLADS. 167 

was most determined to make us laugh, he had always a 
further purpose; some pity was to be extracted from us 
on behalf of the sorrows of men, or some indignation at 
the evil done by them. * 

This is the beginning of that story as to the Two Hun- 
dred Pounds^ for which, as a ballad, I do not care very 
much : 

Special jurymen of England who admire your country's laws, 
And proclaim a British jury worthy of the nation's applause, 
Gaily compliment each other at the issue of a cause, 
Which was tried at Guildford 'sizes, this day week as ever was. 

Here he is indignant, not only in regard to some miscar- 
riage of justice on that special occasion, but at the gen- 
eral unfitness of jurymen for the work confided to them. 
" Gaily compliment yourselves," he says, " on your beauti- 
ful constitution, from which come such beautiful results 
as those I am going to tell you!" When he reminded 
us that Ivanhoe had produced Magna Charta, there was a 
purpose of irony even there in regard to our vaunted free- 
dom. With all your Magj;ia Charta and your juries, what 
are you but snobs ! There is nothing so often misguided 
as general indignation, and I think that in his judgment 
of outside things, in the measure which he usually took of 
them, Thackeray was very frequently misguided. A satir- 
ist by trade will learn to satirise everything, till the light 
of the sun and the moon's loveliness will become evil and 
mean to him. I think that he was mistaken in his views 
of things. But we have to do with him as a writer, not 
as a political economist or a politician. His indignation 
was all true, and the expression of it was often perfect. 
The lines in which he addresses that Pallis Court, at the 
end of Jacob Omnium'' s Hoss^ are almost sublime. 



168 THACKERAY. ^ [chap. 

Pallis Court, you move Come down from that .tribewn, 

My pity most profound. Thou shameless and unjust; 

A most amusing sport Thou swindle, picking pockets in 

You thought it, I'll be bound. The name of Truth august ; 

To saddle hup a three -pound Come down, thou hoary Bias- 
debt, phemy, 
With two-and-twenty pound. For die thou shalt and must. 

Good sport it is to you A-nd go it, Jacob Homnium, 
To grind the honest poor. And ply your iron pen, 

To pay their just or unjust debts And rise up. Sir John Jervis, 
With eight hundred per cent.. And shut me up that den ; 

for Lor ; That sty for fattening lawyers 

Make haste and get your costes in, in. 

They will not last much mor ! On the bones of honest men. 

" Come down from that tribewn, thou shameless and 
unjust !" It is impossible not to feel that he felt this as 
he wrote it. 

There is a branch of his poetry which he calls — or 
which at any rate is now called, Lyra Hyhernica^ for which 
no doubt The Groves of Blarney was his model. There 
have been many imitations since, of which perhaps Bar- 
ham's ballad on the coronation* was the best, "When to 
Westminster the Royal Spinster and the Duke of Leinster 
all in order did repair I" Thackeray, in some of his at- 
tempts, has been equally droll and equally graphic. That 
on The Cristal Palace — not that at Sydenham, but its 
forerunner, the palace of the Great Exhibition — is very 
good, as the following catalogue of its contents will show : 

There's holy saints There's fountains there 

And window paints. And crosses fair ; 

By Maydiayval Pugin ; There's water-gods with urns ; 

Alhamborough Jones There's organs three. 

Did paint the tones To play, d'ye see ? 

Of yellow and gambouge in. " God save the Queen," by turns; 



vul] THACKERAY'S BALLADS. 169 

There's statues bright And ploughs like toys 

Of marble white, For little boys, 

Of silver, and of copper; And ilegant wheel-barrows. 

And some in zinc. 

And some, I think, For thim genteels 

That isn't over proper. Who ride on wheels, 

There's plenty to indulge 'em ; 
There's staym ingynes, There's droskys snug 

That stands in lines. From Paytersbug, 

Enormous and amazing, And vayhycles from Bulgium. 

That squeal and snort 

Like whales in sport, ^ There's cabs on stands 

Or elephants a grazing. And shandthry danns ; 

There's waggons from New 
There's carts and gigs, York here ; 

And pins for pigs. There's Lapland sleighs 

There's dibblers and there's Have crossed the seas, 

harrows, And jaunting cyars from Cork 

here. 

In writing this Thackeray was a little late with his copy 
for Punch ; not, we should say, altogether an uncommon 
accident to him. It should have been with the editor ear- 
ly on Saturday, if not before, but did not come till late on 
Saturday evening. The editor, who was among men the 
most good-natured, and I should think the most forbear- 
ing, either could not, or in this case would not, insert it in 
the next week's issue, and Thackeray, angry and disgusted, 
sent it to The Times, In The Times of next Monday it 
appeared — very much, I should think, to the delight of the 
readers of that august newspaper. 

Mr. Molony's account of the ball given to the Nepau- 
lese ambassadors by the Peninsular and Oriental Com- 
pany, is so like Barham's coronation in the account it 
gives of the guests, that one would fancy it must be by 
the same hand, 

8* 



170 THACKERAY. [chap. 

The noble Chair^ stud at the stair 

And bade the dhrums to thump ; and he 

Did thus evince to that Black Prince 
The welcome of his Company.^ 

fair the girls and rich the curls, 

And bright the oys you saw there was ; 
And fixed each oye you then could spoi 

On General Jung Bahawther was ! 

This gineral great then tuck his sate, 

With all the other ginerals, 
Bedad his treat, his belt, his coat, 

All bleezed with precious minerals ; 
And as he there, with princely air, 

Recloinin on his cushion was, 
All round about his royal chair 

The squeezin and the pushin was. 

Pat, such girls, such jukes and earls. 

Such fashion and nobilitee ! 
Just think of Tim, and fancy him 

Amidst the high gentilitee ! 
There was the Lord de L'Huys, and the Portygeese 

Ministher and his lady there. 
And I recognised, with much surprise. 

Our messmate. Bob O'Grady, there. 

All these are very good fun — so good in humour and so 
good in expression, that it would be needless to criticise 
their peculiar dialect, were it not that Thackeray has made 
for himself a reputation by his writing of Irish. In this 
he has been so entirely successful that for many English 
readers he has established a new language which may not 
improperly be called Hybernico-Thackerayan. If comedy 
is to be got from peculiarities of dialect, as no doubt it is, 

* Chair — i. e., Chairman. - /. e., The P. and 0. Company. 



VIII.] THACKERAY'S BALLADS. Ill 

one form will do as well as another, so long as those who 
read it know no better. So it has been with Thackeray's 
Irish, for in truth he was not familiar with the modes of 
pronunciation which make up Irish brogue. Therefore, 
though he is always droll, he is not true to nature. Many 
an Irishman coming to London, not unnaturally tries to 
imitate the talk of Londoners. You or I, reader, were we 
from the West, and were the dear County Gal way to send 
either of us to Parliament, would probably endeavour to 
drop the dear brogue of our country, and in doing so we 
should make some mistakes. It was these mistakes which 
Thackeray took for the natural Irish tone. He was 
amused to hear a major called " Meejor," but was una- 
ware that the sound arose from Pat's affection of English 
softness of speech. The expression natural to the unadul- 
terated Irishman would rather be " Ma-ajor." He discov- 
ers his own provincialism, and trying to be polite and ur- 
bane, he says '^ Meejor." In one of the lines I have quoted 
there occurs the word " troat." Such a sound never came 
naturally from the mouth of an Irishman. He puts in an 
h instead of omitting it, and says " dhrink." He comes 
to London, and finding out that he is wrong with his 
" dhrink," he leaves out all the h's he can, and thus comes 
to " troat." It is this which Thackeray has heard. There 
is a little piece called the Last Irish Grievance, to which 
Thackeray adds a still later grievance, by the false sounds 
which he elicits from the calumniated mouth of the 
pretended Irish poet. Slaves are ^* sleeves," places are 
**pleeces," Lord John is "Lard Jahn," fatal is "fetal," 
danger is " deenger," and native is " neetive." All these 
are unintended slanders. Tea, Hibernice, is " tay," please 
is " plaise," sea is " say," and ease is " aise." The softer 

sound of e is broadened out by the natural Irishman— not, 
M 



172 ' THACKERAY. [chap. 

to my ear, without a certain euphony ; but no one in Ire- 
land says or hears the reverse. The Irishman who in Lon- 
don might talk of his " neetive " race, would be mincing 
his words to please the ear of the cockney. 

The Chronicle of the Drum would be a true ballad all 
through, were it not that there is tacked on to it a long 
moral in an altered metre. I do not much value the mor- 
al, but the ballad is excellent, not only in much of its ver- 
sification and in the turns of its language, but in the quaint 
and true picture it gives of the French nation. The drum- 
mer, either by himself or by some of his family, has drum- 
med through a century of French battling, caring much 
for his country and its glory, but understanding nothing 
of the causes for which he is enthusiastic. Whether for 
King, Republic, or Emperor, whether fighting and con- 
quering or fighting and conquered, he is happy as long as 
he can beat his drum on a field of glory. But throughout 
his adventures there is a touch of chivalry about our drum- 
mer. In all the episodes of his country's career he feels 
much of patriotism and something of tenderness. It is 
thus he sings during the days of the Revolution : 

We had taken the head of King Capet, 

We called for the blood of his wife ; 
Undaunted she came to the scaffold, 

And bared her fair neck to the knife. 
As she felt the foul fingers that touched her, 

She shrank, but she deigned not to speak ; 
She looked with a royal disdain. 

And died with a blush on her cheek ! 

*Twas thus that our country was saved ! 

So told us the Safety Committee ! 
But, psha, IVe the heart of a soldier — 

All gentleness, mercy, and pity. 



VIII.] THACKERAY'S BALLADS. 113 

I loathed to assist at such deeds. 



# 



And my drum beat its loudest of tunes, 
As we offered to justice offended, 
The blood of the bloody tribunes. 

Away with such foul recollections ! 

No more of the axe and the block. 
I saw the last fight of the sections, 

As they fell 'neath our guns at St. Kock. 
Young Bonaparte led us that day. 

And so it goes on. I will not continue the stanza, be- 
cause it contains the worst rhyme that Thackeray ever 
permitted himself to use. The Chronicle of the Drum has 
not the finish which he achieved afterwards, but it is full 
of national feeling, and carries on its purpose to the end 
with an admirable persistency : 

A curse on those British assassins 

Who ordered the slaughter of Ney ; 
A curse on Sir Hudson who tortured 

The life of our hero away. 
A curse on all Russians — I hate them ; 

On all Prussian and Austrian fry ; 
And, oh, but I pray we may meet them 

And fight them again ere I die. 

The White Squall — which I can hardly call a ballad, 
unless any description of a scene in verse may be included 
in the name — is surely one of the most graphic descrip- 
tions ever put into verse. Nothing written by Thackeray 
shows more plainly his power over words and rhymes. 
He draws his picture without a line omitted or a line 
too much, saying with apparent facility all that he has to 
say, and so saying it that every word conveys its natural 
meaning. 

When a squall, upon a sudden, 

Came o'er the waters scudding ; 



IH TllACKEKAY. [chap. 

And the clouds began to gather, 

And the sea was lashed to lather, 

And the lowering thunder grumbled. 

And the lightning jumped and tumbled, 

And the ship and all the ocean • 

Woke up in wild commotion. 

Then the wind set up a howling, 

And the poodle-dog a yowling, 

And the cocks began a crowing. 

And the old cow raised a lowing. 

As she heard the tempest blowing ; 

And fowls and geese did cackle. 

And the cordage and the tackle 

Began to shriek and crackle ; 

And the spray dashed o'er the funnels, 

And down the deck in runnels ; 

And the rushing water soaks all, 

From the seamen in the fo'ksal 

To the stokers whose black faces 

Peer out of their bed-places ; 

And the captain, he was bawling, 

And the sailors pulling, hauling. 

And the quarter-deck tarpauling 

Was shivered in the squalling ; 

And the passengers awaken. 

Most pitifully shaken ; 

And the steward jumps up and hastens 

For the riecessary basins. 

Tiien the Greeks they groaned and quivered^ 

Ana they knelt, and moaned, and shivered. 

As the plunging waters met them, 

And splashed and overset them ; 

And they call in their emergence 

Upon countless saints and virgins ; 

And their marrowbones are bended. 

And they think the world is ended. 

And ihe Turkish women for'ard 

Wvr^; frightened and behorror'd ; 



Tin.] THACKERAY'S BALLADS. . 175 

And shrieking and bewildering^ 
The mothers clutched their children ; 
The men sang "Allah ! Illah ! 
Mashallah Bis-millah I" 
As the warning waters doused them, 
And splashed them and soused them ; 
And they called upon the Prophet, 
And thought but little of it 

Then all the fleas in Jewry 

Jumped up and bit like fury ; 

And the progeny of Jacob 

Did on the main-deck wake up. 

(I wot these greasy Rabbins 

Would never pay for cabins) ; 

And each man moaned and jabbered in 

His filthy Jewish gaberdine, 

In woe and lamentation, 

And howling consternation. 

And the splashing water drenches 

Their dirty brats and wenches ; 

And they crawl from bales and benches. 

In a hundred thousand stenches. 

This was the White Squall famous. 

Which latterly o'ercame us. 

Peg of Limavaddy has always been very popular, and 
the public have not, I think, been generally aware that the 
young lady in question liv^ed in truth at Newton Limavady 
(with one d). But with the correct name Thackeray would 
hardly have been so successful with his rhymes. 

Citizen or Squire 

Tory, Whig, or Radi- 
cal would all desire 

Peg of Limavaddy. 
Had I Homer's fire 

Or that of Sergeant Taddy 



176 THACKERAY. [chap. 

Meetly I'd admire 

Peg of Limavaddy. 
And till I expire 
Or till I go mad I 
• Will sing unto my lyre 

Peg of Limavaddy. 

The Cane 'bottomed Chair is another, better, I think, 
than Peg of Limavaddy^ as containing that mixture of 
burlesque with the pathetic which belonged so peculiarly 
to Thackeray, and which was indeed the very essence of 
his genius. 

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest, 
There's one that I love and I cherish the best. 

For the finest of couches that's padded with hair 
I never would change thee, my cane-bottomed chair. 

*Tis a bandy-legged, high-bottomed, worm-eaten seat, 
With a creaking old back and twisted old feet ; 

But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there, 
I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottomed chair. 
* * * ♦ * 

She comes from the past and revisits my room, 
She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom ; 

So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair. 

And yonder she sits in my cane-bottomed chair. 

This, in the volume which I have now before me, is fol- 
lowed by a picture of Fanny in the chair, to which I can- 
not but take exception. I am quite sure that when Fanny 
graced the room and seated herself in the chair of her old 
bachelor friend, she had not on a low dress and loosely- 
flowing drawing-room shawl, nor was there a footstool 
ready for her feet. I doubt also the headgear. Fanny 
on that occasion was dressed in her morning apparel, and 
had walked through the streets, carried no fan, and wore 



viii.] THACKERAY^S BALLADS. Ill 

no brooch but one that might be necessary for pinning her 
shawl. 

The Great Cossack JEpic is the longest of the ballads. 
It is a legend of St. Sophia of Kioff, telling how Father 
Hyacinth, by the aid of St. Sophia, whose wooden statue 
he carried with him, escaped across the Borysthenes with 
all the Cossacks at his tail. It is very good fun, but not 
equal to many of the others. Nor is the Carmen Lilliense 
quite to my taste. I should not have declared at once that 
it had come from Thackeray's hand, had I not known it. 

But who could doubt the Bouillabaisse? Who else 
could have written that? Who at the same moment could 
have been so merry and so melancholy — could have gone 
so deep into the regrets of life, with words so appropriate 
to its jollities? I do not know how far my readers will 
agree with me that to read it always must be a fresh pleas- 
ure ; but in order that they may agree with me, if they can, 
I will give it to them entire. If there be one whom it does 
not please, he will like nothing that Thackeray ever wrote 
in verse. 

THE BALLAD OF BOUILLABAISSE. 

A street there is in Paris famous, 

For which no rhyme our language yields, 
Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is — 

The New Street of the Little Fields ; 
And here's an inn, not rich and splendid, 

But still in comfortable case ; 
The which in youth I oft attended, 

To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse. 

This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is — 

A sort of soup, or broth, or brew, 
Or hotch-potch of all sorts of fishes, 

That Greenwich never could outdo ; 



178 THACKERAY. [chap. 

Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, 

Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace : 
All these you eat at Terre's tavern, 

In that one dish of Bouillabaisse. 

€ 

Indeed, a rich and savoury stew 'tis ; 

And true philosophers, methinks. 
Who love all sorts of natural beauties, 

Should love good victuals and good drinks. 
And Cordelier or Benedictine 

Might gladly sure his lot embrace, 
Nor find a fast-day too afflicting 

Which served him up a Bouillabaisse, 

I wonder if the house still there is ? 

Yes, here the lamp is, as before ; 
The smiling red-cheeked ecaillere is 

Still opening oysters at the door. 
Is Terre still alive and able ? 

I recollect his droll grimace ; 
HeM come and smile before your table, 

And hope you liked your Bouillabaisse. 

We enter — nothing's changed or older. 

" How's Monsieur Terre, waiter, pray ?" 
The waiter stares and shrugs his shoulder — 

" Monsieur is dead this many a day." 
*' It is the lot of saint and sinner ; 

So honest Terre's run his race." 
** What will Monsieur require for dinner ?'' 

*' Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse ?" 

*' Oh, oui, Monsieur," 's the waiter's answer, 

" Quel vin Monsieur desire-t-il ?" 
" Tell me a good one." *' That I can, sir : 

The chambertin with yellow seal." 
" So Terre's gone," I say, and sink in 

My old accustom'd corner-place ; 
"He's done with feasting and with drinking, 

With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse,'' 



VIII.] THACKERAY'S BALLADS. lid 

My old accustomed corner here is, 

The table still is in the nook ; 
Ah ! vanish'd many a busy year is 

This well-known chair since last I took. 
When first I saw ye, cari luoghi, 

I'd scarce a beard upon my face, 
And now a grizzled, grim old fogy, 

I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse. 

Where are you, old companions trusty, 

Of early days here met to dine ? 
Come, waiter ! quick, a flagon crusty ; 

I'll pledge them in the good old wine. 
The kind old voices and old faces 

My memory can quick retrace ; 
Around the board they take their places. 

And share the wine and Bouillabaisse. 

There's Jack has made a wondrous marriage ; 

There's laughing Tom is laughing yet ; 
There's brave Augustus drives his carriage ; 

There's poor old Fred in the Gazette; 
O'er James's head the grass is growing. 

Good Lord ! the world has wagged apace 
Since here we set the claret flowing. 

And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse. 

Ah me ! how quick the days are flitting ! 

I mind me of a time that's gone, 
When here I'd sit, as now I'm sitting. 

In this same place — but not alone. 
A fair young face was nestled near me, 

A dear, dear face looked fondly up. 
And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me? 

There's no one now to share my cup. 

***** 

^ I drink it as the Fates ordain it. 

Come fill it, and have done with rhymes ; 
Fill up the lonely glass, and drain it 
In memorv of dear old times. 



180 ^ THACKERAY. [chap. viii. 

Welcome the wine, whatever the seal is ; 

And sit you down and say your grace 
With thankful heart, whatever the meal is. 

Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse. 

I am not disposed to say that Thackeray will hold a 
high place among English poets. He would have been 
the first to ridicule such an assumption made on his be- 
half. But I think that his verses will be more popular 
than those of many highly reputed poets, and that as 
years roll on they will gain rather than lose in public 
estimation. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Thackeray's style and manner of work. 



A novel in style should be easy, lucid, and of course 
grammatical. The same may be said of any book; but 
that which is intended to recreate should be easily under- 
stood — for which purpose lucid narration is an essential. 
In matter it should be moral and amusing. In manner it 
may be realistic, or sublime, or ludicrous; or it may be 
all these if the author can combine them. As to Thack- 
eray's performance in style and matter I will say some- 
thing further on. His manner was mainly realistic, and 
I will therefore speak first of that mode of expression 
which was peculiarly his own. 

Realism in style has not all the ease which seems to be- 
long to it. It is the object of the author who affects it 
so to communicate with his reader that all his words shall 
seem to be natural to the occasion. We do not think 
the language of Dogberry natural, when he tells neigh- 
bour Seacole that " to write and read comes by nature." 
That is ludicrous. Nor is the language of Hamlet nat- 
ural when he shows to his mother the portrait of his 
father : 

See what a grace was seated on this brow ; 
Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself ; 
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command. 



182 THACKERAY. [chap. 

That is sublime. Constance is natural when she turns 
away from the Cardinal, declaring that 

He talks to me that never had a son. 

In one respect both the sublime and ludicrous are easier 
than the realistic. They are not required to be true. A 
man with an imagination and culture may feign either of 
them without knowing the ways of men. To be realistic 
you must know accurately that which you describe. How 
often do we find in novels that the author makes an at- 
tempt at realism and falls into a bathos of absurdity, be- 
cause he cannot use appropriate language? "No human 
being ever spoke like that," we say to ourselves — while we 
should not question the naturalness of the production, ei- 
ther in the grand or the ridiculous. 

And yet in very truth the realistic must not be true — 
but just so far removed from truth as to suit the erroneous 
idea of truth which the reader may be supposed to enter- 
tain. For were a novelist to narrate a conversation between 
two persons of fair but not high education, and to use the 
ill-arranged words and fragments of speech which are real- 
ly common in such conversations, he would seem to have 
sunk to the ludicrous, and to be attributing to the interloc- 
utors a mode of language much beneath them. Though 
in fact true, it would seem to be far from natural. But, 
on the other hand, were he to put words grammatically 
correct into the mouths of his personages, and to round off 
and to complete the spoken sentences, the ordinary reader 
would instantly feel such a style to be stilted and unreal. 
This reader would not analyse it, but would in some dim 
but sufficiently critical manner be aware that his author 
was not providing him with a naturally spoken dialogue. 
To produce the desired effect the narrator must go be- 



IX.] THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. 183 

tween the two. He must mount somewhat above the or- 
dinary conversational powers of such persons as are to be 
represented — lest he disgust. But he must by no means 
soar into correct phraseology — lest he offend. The real- 
istic — by which we mean that which shall seem to be real 
— lies between the two, and in reaching it the writer has 
not only to keep his proper distance on both sides, but has 
to maintain varying distances in accordance with the posi- 
tion, mode of life, and education of the speakers. Lady 
Castlewood in Esmond would not have been properly made 
to speak with absolute precision ; but she goes nearer to 
the mark than her more ignorant lord, the viscount ; less 
near, however, than her better- educated kinsman, Henry 
Esmond. He, however, is not made to speak altogether 
by the card, or he would be unnatural. Nor would each 
of them speak always in the same strain, but they would 
alter their language according to their companion — accord- 
ing even to the hour of the day. All this the reader un- 
consciously perceives, and will not think the language to 
be natural unless the proper variations be there. 

In simple narrative the rule is the same as in dialogue, 
though it does not admit of the same palpable deviation 
from correct construction. The story of any incident, to 
be realistic, will admit neither of sesquipedalian grandeur 
nor of grotesque images. The one gives an idea of ro- 
mance and the other of burlesque, to neither of which is 
truth supposed to appertain. We desire to soar frequent- 
ly, and then we try romance. We desire to recreate our- 
selves with the easy and droll. Dulce est desipere in loco. 
Then we have recourse to burlesque. But in neither do 
we expect human nature. 

T cannot but think that in the hands of the novelist the 
middle course is the most powerful. Much as we may 



184 THACKERAY. [chap. 

delight in burlesque, we cannot claim for it the power of 
achieving great results. So much, I think, will be granted. 
For the sublime we look rather to poetry than to prose; 
and though I will give one or two instances just now in 
which it has been used with great effect in prose fiction, 
it does not come home to the heart, teaching a lesson, as 
does the realistic. The girl who reads is touched by Lucy 
Ashton, but she feels herself to be convinced of the facts 
as to Jeanie Deans, and asks herself whether she might 
not emulate them. 

Now as to the realism of Thackeray, I must rather ap- 
peal to my readers than attempt to prove it by quotation. 
Whoever it is that speaks in his pages, does it not seem 
that such a person would certainly have used such words 
on such an occasion ? If there be need of examination to 
learn whether it be so or not, let the reader study all that 
falls from the mouth of Lady Castlewood through the 
novel called Esmond^ or all that falls from the mouth of 
Beatrix. They are persons peculiarly situated — noble 
women, but who have still lived much out of the world. 
The former is always conscious of a sorrow ; the latter is 
always striving after an effect — and both on this account 
are difficult of management. A period for the story has 
been chosen which is strange and unknown to us, and 
which has required a peculiar language. One would have 
said beforehand that whatever might be the charms of the 
book, it would not be natural. And yet the ear is never 
wounded by a tone that is false. It is not always the case 
that in novel reading the ear should be wounded because 
the words spoken are unnatural. Bulwer does not wound, 
though he never puts into the mouth of any of his per- 
sons words such as would have been spoken. They are not 
expected from him. It is something else that he provides. 



IX.] THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. 18^ 

From Thackeray they are expected — and from many oth- 
ers. But Thackeray never disappoints. Whether it be a 
great duke, such as he who was to have married Beatrix, 
or a mean chaplain, such as Tusher, or Captain Steele the 
humorist, they talk — not as they would have talked prob- 
ably, of which I am no judge — but as we feel that they 
might have talked. We find ourselves willing to take it 
as proved because it is there, which is the strongest possi- 
ble evidence of the realistic capacity of the writer. 

As to the sublime in novels, it is not to be supposed 
that any very high rank of sublimity is required to put 
such works within the pale of that definition. I allude to 
those in which an attempt is made to soar above the ordi- 
nary actions and ordinary language of life. We may take 
as an instance The Mysteries of Udolpho, That is intend- 
ed to be sublime throughout. Even the writer never for 
a moment thought of descending to real life. She must 
have been untrue to her own idea of her own business had 
she done so. It is all stilted — all of a certain altitude 
among the clouds. It has been in its time a popular book, 
and has had its world of readers. Those readers no doubt 
preferred the diluted romance of Mrs. Radcliff to the con- 
densed realism of Fielding. At any rate, they did not look 
for realism. Pelham may be taken as another instance of 
the sublime, though there is so much in it that is of tbc 
world worldly, though an intentional fall to the ludicrous 
is often made in it. The personages talk in glittering di- 
alogues, throwing about philosophy, science, and the clas- 
sics, in a manner which is always suggestive and often 
amusing. The book is brilliant with intellect. But no 
word is ever spoken as it would have been spoken — no de- 
tail is ever narrated as it would have occurred. Bulwer no 
doubt regarded novels as romantic, and would have lookef? 

9 



186 THACKEKAY. [chap, 

with contempt on any junction of realism and romance, 
though, in varying his work, he did not think it beneath 
him to vary his sublimity with the ludicrous. The • sub- 
lime in novels is no doubt most effective when it breaks 
out, as though by some burst of nature, in the midst of 
a story true to life. '' If," said Evan Maccombich, " the 
Saxon gentlemen are laughing because a poor man such as 
me thinks my life, or the life of six of my degree, is worth 
that of Vich Ian Vohr, it's like enough they may be very 
right ; bul if they laugh because they think I would not 
keep my word and come back to redeem him, I can tell 
them they ken neither the heart of a Hielandman nor the 
honour of a gentleman." That is sublime. And, again, 
when Balfour of Burley slaughters Bothwell, the death 
scene is sublime. '^Die, bloodthirsty dog!" said Burley. 
" Die as thou hast lived ! Die like the beasts that per- 
ish — hoping nothing, believing nothing !" — *' And fearing 
nothing," said Bothwell. Horrible as is the picture, it is 
sublime. As is also that speech of Meg Merrilies, as she 
addresses Mr. Bertram, standing on the bank. " Ride your 
ways," said the gipsy ; " ride your ways. Laird of Ellan- 
gowan ; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram. This day have 
ye quenched seven smoking hearths ; see if the fire in your 
ain parlour burn the blyther for that. Ye have riven the 
thack off seven cottar houses ; look if your ain roof-tree 
stand the faster. Ye may stable your stirks in the sheal- 
ings at Derncleugh ; see that the hare does not couch on 
the hearthstane at Ellangovvan." That is romance, and 
reaches the very height of the sublime. That does not 
offend, impossible though it be that any old woman should 
have spoken such words, because it does in truth lift the 
reader up among the bright stars. It is thus that the sub- 
lime may be mingled with the realistic, if the writer haa 



IX. j THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. 187 

the power. Thackeray also rises in that way to a high 
pitch, though not in many instances. Romance does not 
often justify to him an absence of truth. The scene be- 
tween Lady Castle wood and the Duke of Hamilton is one 
when she explains to her child's suitor who Henry Esmond 
is. " My daughter may receive presents from the head of 
our house,'' says the lady, speaking up for her kinsman. 
^' My daughter may thankfully take kindness from her fa- 
ther's, her mother's, her brother's dearest friend." The 
whole scene is of the same nature, and is evidence of 
Thackeray's capacity for the sublime. And again, when 
the same lady welcomes the same kinsman on his return 
from the wars, she rises as high. But as I have already 
quoted a part of the passage in the chapter on this novel, 
I will not repeat it here. 

It may perhaps be said of the sublime in novels — which 
I have endeavoured to describe as not being generally of 
a high order — that it is apt to become cold, stilted, and 
unsatisfactory. What may be done by impossible castles 
among impossible mountains, peopled by impossible heroes 
and heroines, and fraught with impossible horrors. The 
Mysteries of Udolpho have shown us. Bat they require 
a patient reader, and one who can content himself with a 
long protracted and most unemotional excitement. The 
sublimity which is effected by sparkling speeches is better, 
if the speeches really have something in them beneath the 
sparkles. Those of Balwer generally have. Those of his 
imitators are often without anything, the sparkles even 
hardly sparkling. At the best they fatigue ; and a novel, 
if it fatigues, is unpardonable. Its only excuse is to be 
found in the amusement it affords. It should instruct 
also, no doubt, but it never will do so unless it hides its 
instruction and amuses. Scott understood all this, when 



188 THACKERAY. [chap, 

he allowed himself only such sudden bursts as I have de- 
scribed. Even in The Bride of Lammermoor, which I do 
not regard as among the best of his performances, as he 
soars high into the sublime, so does he descend low into 
the ludicrous. 

In this latter division of pure fiction — the burlesque, as 
it is commonly called, or the ludicrous — Thackeray is 
quite as much at home as in the realistic, though, the ve- 
hicle being less powerful, he has achieved smaller results 
by it. Manifest as are the objects in his view when he 
wrote The Hoggarty Diamond or The Legend of the Rhine, 
they were less important and less evidently effected than 
those attempted by Vanity Fair and Pendennis, Cap- 
tain Shindy, the Snob, does not tell us so plainly what is 
not a gentleman as does Colonel Newcome what is. Nev- 
ertheless, the ludicrous has, w^ith Thackeray, been very 
powerful and very delightful. 

In trying to describe what is done by literature of this 
class, it is especially necessary to remember that different 
readers are affected in a different way. That which is 
one man's meat is another man's poison. In the sublime, 
when the really grand has been reached, it is the reader's 
own fault if he be not touched. We know that many 
are indifferent to the soliloquie's of Hamlet, but we do not 
hesitate to declare to ourselves that they are so because 
they lack the power of appreciating grand language. We 
do not scruple to attribute to those who are indifferent 
some inferiority of intelligence. And in regard to the 
realistic, when the truth of a well-told story or life-like 
character does not come home, w^e think that then, too, 
there is deficiency in the critical ability. But there is 
nothing necessarily lacking to a man because he does not 
enjoy The Heathen Chinee or The Bigloiv Papers; and 



IX.] THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. 189 

the man to whom these delights of American humour are 
leather and prunello may be of all the most enraptured by 
the wit of Sam Weller or the mock piety of Pecksniff. 
It is a matter of taste and not of intellect, as one man 
'likes caviare after his dinner, while another prefers apple- 
pie ; and the man himself cannot, or, as far as we can see, 
does not, direct his own taste in the one matter more than 
in the other. 

Therefore I cannot ask others to share with me the de- 
light which I have in the various and peculiar expressions 
of the ludicrous which are common to Thackeray. Some 
considerable portion of it consists in bad spelling. We 
may say that Charles James Harrington Fitzroy Yellow- 
plush, or C. FitzJeames De La Pluche, as he is afterwards 
called, would be nothing but for his " orthogwaphy so 
carefully inaccuwate." As I have before said, Mrs. Mal- 
aprop had seemed to have reached the height of this hu- 
mour, and in having done so to have made any repetition 
unpalatable. But Thackeray's studied blundering is alto- 
gether different from that of Sheridan. Mrs. Malaprop 
uses her words in a delightfully wrong sense. Yellow- 
plush would be a very intelligible, if not quite an accurate 
writer, had he not made for himself special forms of Eng- 
lish words altogether new to the eye. 

*'My ma wrapped up my buth in a mistry. I may be 
illygitmit ; I may have been changed at nus ; but I've al- 
ways had genTm'nly tastes through life, and have no 
doubt that I come of a genTm'nly origum." We cannot 
admit that there is wit, or even humour, in bad spelling 
alone. Were it not that Yellowplush, with his bad spell- 
ing, had so much to say for himself, there would be noth- 
ing in it; but there is always a sting of satire directed 
against some real vice, or some growing vulgarity, which is 



190 THACKKRAY. [chap. 

made sharper by the absurdity of the language. In The 
Diary of George IV, there are the following reflections 
on a certain correspondence : " Wooden you phansy, now, 
that the author of such a letter, instead of writun about 
pipple of tip -top quality, was describin' Vinegar Yard? 
Would you beleave that the lady he was a-ritin' to was 
a chased modist lady of honour and mother of a family? 
trumpery ! o morris! as Homer says. This is a hige- 
ous pictur of manners, such as I weap to think of, as ev- 
ery morl man must weap." We do not wonder that when 
he makes his "ajew" he should have been called up to be 
congratulated on the score of his literary performances by 
his master, before the Duke, and Lord Bagwig, and Dr. 
Larner, and ^* Sawedwadgeorgeearllittnbulwig." All that 
Yellowplush says or writes are among the pearls which 
Thackeray was continually scattering abroad. 

But this of the distinguished footman was only one of 
the forms of the ludicrous which he was accustomed to 
use in the furtherance of some purpose which he had at 
heart. It was his practice to clothe things most revolt- 
ing with an assumed grace and dignity, and to add to the 
weight of his condemnation by the astounding mendacity 
of the parody thus drawn. There was a grim humour in 
this which has been displeasing to some, as seeming to 
hold out to vice a hand which has appeared for too long a 
time to be friendly. As we are disposed to be not alto- 
gether sympathetic with a detective policeman who shall 
have spent a jolly night with a delinquent, for the sake of 
tracing home the suspected guilt to his late comrade, so 
are some disposed to be almost angry with our author, 
who seems to be too much at home with his rascals, and 
to live with them on familiar terms till we doubt whether 
he does not forget their rascality. Barry Lyndon is the 



lx.i THACKERAY^S STYLE AND MAKNER OF WORK, lot 

strongest example we have of this style of the ludicrous, 
and the critics of whom I speak have thought that our 
friendly relations with Barry have been too genial, too 
apparently genuine^ so that it might almost be doubtful 
whether during the narrative \ve might not, at this or the 
other crisis, be rather with him than against him. "After 
all," the reader might say, on coming to that passage in 
which Barry defends his trade as a gambler — a passage 
which I have quoted in speaking of the novel —^ " aftel* 
all, this man is more hero than scoundrel ;" so well is the 
burlesque humour maintained, so well does the scoundrel 
hide his own villany. I can easily understand that to 
some it should seem too long drawn out. To me it seems 
to be the perfection of humour — and of philosophy. If 
such a one as Barry Lyndon, a man full of intellect, can 
be made thus to love and cherish his vice, and to believe 
in its beauty, how much more necessary is it to avoid the 
footsteps which lead to it ? But, as I have said above, 
there is no standard by which to judge of the excellence 
of the ludicrous as there is of the sublime, and even the 
realistic. 

No writer ever had a stronger proclivity' towards paro- 
dy than Thackeray; and we may, I think, confess that 
there is no form of literary drollery more dangerous. The 
parody will often mar the gem of which it coarsely re- 
produces the outward semblance. The word " damaged,'' 
used instead of ** damask," has destroyed to my ear for 
ever the music of one of the sweetest passages in Shake- 
speare. But it must be acknowledged of Thackeray that, 
fond as he is of this bi-anch of humour, he has done little 
or no injury by his parodies. They run over with fun, 
bat are so contrived that they do not lessen the flavour of 
the original. I have given in one of the preceding chap- 



192 THACKERAY. [chap. 

ters a little set of verses of his own, called The Willow 
Tree^ and his own parody on his own work. There the 
reader may see how effective a parody may be in destroy- 
ing the sentiment of the piece parodied. But in dealing 
with other authors he has been grotesque without being 
sevei'ely critical, and has been very like, without making 
ugly or distasteful that which he has imitated. No one 
who has admired Coningshy will admire it the less because 
of Codlingshy. Nor will the undoubted romance of Eu- 
gene Aram be lessened in the estimation of any reader of 
novels by the well-told career of George de Barnwell, One 
may say that to laugh Ivanhoe out of face, or to lessen the 
glory of that immortal story, would be beyond the power 
of any farcical effect. Thackeray, in his Rowena and Re- 
hecca^ certainly had no such purpose. Nothing of Ivanhoe 
is injured, nothing made less valuable than it was before, 
yet, of all prose parodies in the language, it is perhaps the 
most perfect. Ev^ery character is maintained, ev^ery inci- 
dent has a taste of Scott. It has the twang of Ivanhoe 
from beginning to end, and yet there is not a word in it 
by which the author of Ivanhoe could have been offended. 
But then there is the purpose beyond that of the mere 
parody. Prudish w^omen have to be laughed at, and des- 
potic kings, and parasite lords and bishops. The ludi- 
crous alone is but poor fun ; but when the ludicrous has a 
meaning, it can be very effective in the hands of such a 
master as this. 

" He to die !" resumed the bishop. *' He a mortal like to us ! 
Death was not for him intended, though communis Cfmnibus. 
Keeper, you are irrehgious, for to talk and cavil thus !" 

So much I have said of the manner in which Thackeray 
did his work, endeavouring to represent humam nature as 



IX.] THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. 198 

lie saw it, so that his readers should learn to love what is 
good, and to hate what is evil. As to the merits of his 
style, it will be necessary to insist on them the less, be- 
cause it has been generally admitted to be easy, lucid, and 
grammatical. I call that style easy by which the writer 
has succeeded in conveying to the reader that which the 
reader is intended to receive with the least possible amount 
of trouble to him.* I call that style lucid which conveys to 
the reader most accurately all that the writer wishes to con- 
vey on any subject. | The two virtues will, I think, be seen 
to be very different. An author may wish to give an idea 
that a certain flavour is bitter. He shall leave a convic- 
tion that it is simply disagreeable. Then he is not lucid. 
But he shall convey so much as that, in such a manner as 
to give the reader no trouble in arriving at the conclu- 
sion. Therefore he is easy. The subject here suggested 
is as little complicated as possible ; but in the intercourse 
which is going on continually between writers and read- 
ers, affairs of all degrees of complication are continually 
being discussed, of a nature so complicated that the inex- 
perienced writer is puzzled at every turn to express him- 
self, and the altogether inartistic writer fails to do so. 
Who among writers has not to acknowledge that he is 
often unable to tell all that he has to tell ? Words refuse 
to do it for him. He struggles and stumbles and alters 
and adds, but finds at last that he has gone either too far 
or not quite far enough. Then there comes upon him 
the necessity of choosing between two evils. He must 
either give up the fulness of his thought, and content 
himself with presenting some fragment of it in that lucid 
arrangement of words which he affects ; or he must bring 
out his thought with ambages ; he must mass his sen- 
tences inconsequentially ; he must struggle up hill almost 

9^ 



IH THACKERAY. [citAP. 

hopelessly with his phrases — so that at the end the reader 
will have to labour as he himself has laboured, or else to 
leave behind much of the fruit which it has been intended 
that he should garner. It is the ill-fortune of some to be 
neither easy or lucid ; and there is nothing more wonder- 
ful in the history of letters than the patience of readers 
when called upon to suffer under the double calamity. It 
is as though a man w^ere reading a dialogue of Plato, un- 
derstanding neither the subject nor the language. But it 
is often the case that one has to be sacrificed to the other. 
The pregnant writer will sometimes solace himself by de- 
claring that it is not his business to supply intelligence to. 
the reader ; and then, in throwing out the entirety of his 
thought, will not stop to remember that he cannot hope 
to scatter his ideas far and wide unless he can make them 
easily intelligible. Then the wTiter who is determined 
that his book shall not be put down because it is trouble- 
some, is too apt to avoid the knotty bits and shirk the 
rocky turns, because he cannot with ease to himself make 
them easy to others. If this be acknowledged, I shall be 
held to be right in saying not only that ease and lucidity 
in style are different virtues, but that they are often op- 
posed to each other. They may, however, be combined, 
and then the writer will have really learned the art of 
writing. Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci. It 
is to be done, I believe, in all languages. A man by art 
and practice shall at least obtain such a masterhood over 
words as to express all that he thinks, in phrases that shall 
be easily understood. 

In such a small space as can here be allowed, I cannot 
give instances to prove that this has been achieved by 
Thackeray. Nor would instances prove the existence of 
the virtue, though instances might the absence. The proof 



IX.] THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. 195 

]ies in the work of the man's life, and can only become 
plain to those who have read his writings. I must refer 
readers to their own experiences, and ask them whether 
they have found themselves compelled to study passages 
in Thackeray in order that they might find a recondite 
meaning, or whether they have not been sure that they 
and the author have together understood all that there 
was to understand in the matter. Have they run back- 
ward over the passages, and then gone on, not quite sure 
what the author has meant ? If not, then he has been 
easy and lucid. We have not had it so easy with all 
modern writers, nor w^ith all that are old. I may best, 
perhaps, explain my meaning by taking something written 
long ago ; something very valuable, in order that I may 
not damage my argument by comparing the easiness of 
Thackeray with the harshness of some author who has 
in other respects failed of obtaining approbation. If you 
take the play of Cymheline^ you will, I think, find it to be 
anything but easy reading. Nor is Shakespeare always 
lucid. For purposes of his own he will sometimes force 
his readers to doubt his meaning, even after prolonged 
study. It has ever been so with Hamlet. My readers 
will not, I think, be so crossgrained with me as to suppose 
that I am putting Thackej^ay as a master of style above 
Shakespeare. I am only endeavouring to explain by ref- 
erence to the great master the condition of literary pro- 
duction which he attained. Whatever Thackeray says, the 
reader cannot fail to understand ; and whatever Thackeray, 
attempts to communicate, he succeeds in conveying. 

That he is grammatical I must leave to my readers' 
judgment, with a simple assertion in his favour. There 
are some who say that grammar — by which I mean ac- 
curacy of composition, in accordance with certain acknowl- 



196 THACKERAY. [chap. 

edged rules — is only a means to an end; and that, if a 
writer can absolutely achieve the end by some other mode 
of his own, he need not regard the prescribed means. If 
a man can so write as to be easily understood, and to 
convey lucidly that which he has to convey without ac- 
curacy of grammar, why should he subject himself to un- 
necessary trammels ? Why not make a path for himself, 
if the path so made will certainly lead him whither he 
wishes to go ? The answer is, that no other path will 
lead others whither he wishes to carry them but that 
which is common to him and to those others. It is nec- 
essary that there should be a ground equally familiar to 
the writer and to his readers. If there be no such com- 
mon ground, they will certainly not come into full accord. 
There have been recusants who, by a certain acuteness of 
their own, have partly done so — wilful recusants; but 
they have been recusants, not to the extent of discarding 
grammar — which no writer could do and not be altogether 
in the dark — but so far as to have created for themselves 
a phraseology which has been picturesque by reason of its 
illicit vagaries ; as a woman will sometimes please ill-in- 
structed eyes and ears by little departures from feminine 
propriety. They have probably laboured in their vocation 
as sedulously as though they had striven to be correct, 
and have achieved at the best but a short-lived success — 
as IS the case also with the unconventional female. The 
charm of the disorderly soon loses itself in the ugliness of 
disorder. And there are others rebellious from grammar, 
who are, however, hardly to be called rebels, because the 
laws which they break have never been altogether known 
to them. Among those very dear to me in English litera- 
ture, one or two might be named of either sort, whose 
works, though they have that in them which will insure to 



IX.] THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. ll»7 

them a long life, will become from year to year less valu- 
able and less venerable, because their authors have either 
scorned or have not known that common ground of lan- 
guage on which the author and his readers should stand 
together. My purport here is only with Thackeray, and I 
say that he stands always on that common ground. He 
quarrels with none of the laws. As the lady who is most 
attentive to conventional propriety may still have her own 
fashion of dress and her own mode of speech, so had 
Thackeray very manifestly his own style; but it is one 
the correctness of which has never been impugned. 

I hold that gentleman to be the best dressed whose 
dress no one observes. I am not sure but that the same 
may be said of an author's written language. Only, where 
shall we find an example of such perfection ? Always 
easy, always lucid, always correct, we may find them ; but 
who is the writer, easy, lucid, and correct, who has not 
impregnated his writing with something of that personal 
flavour which we call mannerism ? To speak of authors 
well known to all readers — Does not The Rambler taste of 
Johnson ; The Decline and Fall^ of Gibbon ; The Middle 
Ages J of Hallam ; The His tori/ of England, of Macaulay ; 
and The Invasion of the Crimea, of Kinglake ? Do we 
not know the elephantine tread of The Saturday, and the 
precise toe of The Spectator ? I have sometimes thought 
that Swift has been nearest to the mark of any — writing 
English and not writing Swift. But I doubt whether an 
accurate observer would not trace even here the "mark 
of the beast." Thackeray, too, has a strong flavour of 
Thackeray. I am inclined to think that his most beset- 
ting sin in style — the little ear-mark by which he is most 
conspicuous — is a certain affected familiarity. He in- 
dulges too frequently in little confidences with individual 



li)H THACKERAY. [chap. 

readers, in which pretended allusions to himself are fre- 
quent. " What would you do ? what would you say now, 
if you were in such a position ?" he asks. He describes 
this practice of his in the preface to Pendennis. ^* It is a 
sort of confidential talk between writer and reader. . . . 
In the course of his volubility the perpetual speaker must 
of necessity lay bare his own weaknesses, vanities, peculiari- 
ties." In the short contributions to periodicals on which 
he tried his 'prentice hand, such addresses and conversa- 
tions were natural and efficacious ; but in a larger work of 
fiction they cause an absence of that dignity to which even 
a novel may aspire. You feel that each morsel as you 
read it is a detached bit, and that it has all been written 
in detachments. The book is robbed of its integrity by a 
certain good-humoured geniality of language, which causes 
the reader to be almost too much at home with his au- 
thor. There is a saying that familiarity breeds contempt, 
and I have been sometimes inclined to think that our au- 
thor has sometimes failed to stand up for himself with 
sufficiency of " personal deportment." 

In other respects Thackeray's style is excellent. As I 
have said before, the reader always understands his words 
without an effort, and receives all that the author has to 
give. 

There now remains to be discussed the matter of our 
author's work. The manner and the style are but the 
natural wrappings in which the goods have been prepared 
for the market. Of these goods it is no doubt true that 
unless the wrappings be in some degree meritorious the 
article will not be accepted at all ; but it is the kernel 
which w^e seek, which, if it be not of itself sweet and di- 
gestible, cannot be made serviceable by any shell, however 
pretty or easy to be cracked. I have said previously that 



ix.j THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNEK 0¥ WORK. 199 

it is the basiness of a novel to instruct in morals and to 
amuse. I will go further, and will add, having been for 
many years a most prolific writer of novels myself, that I 
regard him who can put himself into close communication 
with young people year after year without making some 
attempt to do them good as a very sorry fellow indeed. 
However poor your matter may be, however near you may 
come to that " f oolishest of existing mortals," as Carlyle 
presumes some unfortunate novelist to be, still, if there be 
those who read your works, they will undoubtedly be more 
or less influenced by what they find there. And it is be- 
cause the novelist amuses that he is thus influential. The 
sermon too often has no such effect, because it is applied 
with the declared intention of having it. The palpable 
and overt dose the child rejects; but that which is cun- 
ningly insinuated by the aid of jam or honey is accepted 
unconsciously, and goes on upon its curative mission. So 
it is with the novel. It is taken because of its jam and 
honey. But, unlike the honest simple jam and honey of 
the household cupboard, it is never unmixed with physic. 
There will be the dose within it, either curative or poison- 
ous. The girl will be taught modesty or immodesty, truth 
or falsehood; the lad will be taught honour or dishonour, 
simplicity or affectation. Without the lesson the amuse- 
ment will not be there. There are novels which certain- 
ly can teach nothing; but then neither can they amuse 
any one. 

I should be said to insist absurdly on the power of my 
own confraternity if I were to declare that the bulk of the 
young people in the upper and middle classes receive their 
moral teaching chiefly from the novels they read. Moth- 
ers would no doubt think of their own sweet teaching; 
fathers of the examples which they set; and schoolmas- 



200 THACKERAY. [chap. 

ters of the excellence of their instructions. Happy is the 
country that has such mothers, fathers, and schoolmasters ! 
But the novelist creeps in closer than the schoolmaster, 
closer than the father, closer almost than the mother. He 
is the chosen guide, the tutor whom the young pupil 
chooses for herself. She retires with him, suspecting no 
lesson, safe against rebuke, throwing herself head and heart 
into the narration as she can hardly do into her task-work; 
and there she is taught — how she shall learn to love ; how 
she shall receive the lover when he comes; how far she 
should advance to meet the joy; why she should be reti- 
cent, and not throw herself at once into this new delight. 
It is the same with the young man, though he would be 
more prone even than she to reject the suspicion of such 
tutorship. But he too will there learn either to speak the 
truth, or to lie ; and will receive from his novel lessons ei- 
ther of real manliness, or of that affected apishness and 
tailor-begotten demeanour which too many professors of 
the craft give out as their dearest precepts. 

At any rate the close intercourse is admitted. Where 
is the house now from which novels are tabooed ? Is it 
not common to allow them almost indiscriminately, so that 
young and old each chooses his own novel ? Shall he, 
then, to whom this close fellowship is allowed — this inner 
confidence — shall he not be careful what words he uses, 
and what thoughts he expresses, when he sits in council 
with his young friend ? This, which it will certainly be 
his duty to consider with so much care, will be the matter 
of his work. We know what was thought of such matter 
when Lydia in the play was driven to the necessity of 
flinging ''''Peregrine Pickle under the toilet," and thrust- 
ing ''''Lord Aimwell under the sofa." W.'^ have got be- 
yond that now, and are tolerably sure that our girls do not 



IX.] THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. 201 

hide their novels. The more freely they are allowed, the 
more necessary is it that he who supplies shall take care 
that they are worthy of the trust that is given to them. 

Now let the reader ask himself what are the lessons 
which Thackeray has taught. Let him send his memory 
running back over all those characters of whom we have 
just been speaking, and ask himself whether any girl has 
been taught to be immodest, or any man unmanly, by 
what Thackeray has written. A novelist has two modes 
of teaching — by good example or bad. It is not to be 
supposed that because the person treated of be evil, there- 
fore the precept will be evil. If so, some personages with 
whom we have been made well acquainted from our youth 
upwards would have been omitted in our early lessons. 
It may be a question whether the teaching is not more ef- 
ficacious which comes from the evil example. What story 
was ever more powerful in showing the beauty of feminine 
reticence, and the horrors of feminine evil-doing, than the 
fate of EfBe Deans ? The Templar would have betrayed a 
woman to his lust, but has not encouraged others by the 
freedom of his life. Varney was utterly bad — but though 
a gay courtier, he has enticed no others to go the way that 
he went. So it has been with Thackeray. His examples 
have been generally of that kind — but they have all been 
efiicacious in their teaching on the side of modesty and 
manliness, truth and simplicity. When some girl shall 
have traced from first to last the character of Beatrix, 
what, let us ask, will be the result on her mind ? Beatrix 
was born noble, clever, beautiful, with certain material ad- 
vantages, which it was within her compass to improve by 
her nobility, wit, and beauty. She was quite alive to that 
fact, and thought of those material advantages, to the ut- 
ter exclusion, in our mind, of any idea of moral goodness. 



202 THACKERAY. [chap. 

She realised it all, and told herself that that was the game 
she would play. " Twenty-five !" says she ; " and in eight 
years no man has ever touched my heart !" That is her 
boast when she is about to be married — her only boast of 
herself. "A most detestable young woman!" some will 
say. "An awful example !" others will add. Not a doubt 
of it. She proves the misery of her own career so fully 
that no one will follow it. The example is so awful that 
it will surely deter. The girl will declare to herself that 
not in that way will she look for the happiness which she 
hopes to enjoy ; and the young man will say, as he reads 
it, that no Beatrix shall touch his heart. 

You may go through all his characters with the same 
effect. Pendennis will be scorned because he is light; 
Warrington loved because he is strong and merciful ; Dob- 
bin will be honoured because he is unselfish ; and the old 
colonel, though he be foolish, vain, and weak, almost wor- 
shipped because he is so true a gentleman. It is in the 
handling of questions such as these that we have to look 
for the matter of the novelist — those moral lessons which 
he mixes up with his jam and his honey. I say that with 
Thackeray the physic is always curative and never poison- 
ous. He may be admitted safely into that close fellow- 
ship, and be allowed to accompany the dear ones to their 
retreats. The girl will never become bold under his 
preaching, or taught to throw herself at men's heads. Nor 
will the lad receive a false flashy idea of what becomes a 
youth, when he is first about to take his place among men. 

As to that other question, whether Thackeray be amus- 
ing as well as salutary, I must leave it to public opinion. 
There is now being brought out of his works a more splen- 
did edition than has ever been produced in any age or 
any country of the writings of such an author. A cer- 



IX.] THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. 203 

tain fixed number of copies only is being issued, and each 
copy will cost £33 125. when completed. It is under- 
Btood that a very large proportion of the edition has been 
already bought or ordered. Cost, it will be said, is a bad 
test of excellence. It will not prove the merit of a book 
any more than it will of a horse. But it is proof of the 
popularity of the book. Print and illustrate and bind up 
some novels how you will, no one will buy them. Previous 
to these costly volumes, there have been two entire editions 
of his works since the author's death, one comparatively 
cheap and the other dear. Before his death his stories had 
been scattered in all imaginable forms. I may therefore 
assert that their charm has been proved by their popularity. / 

There remains for us only this question — whether the 
nature of Thackeray's works entitle^ him to be called a 
cynic. The word is one which is always used in a bad 
sense. "Of a dog; currish," is the definition which we 
get from Johnson — quite correctly, and in accordance with 
its etymology. And he gives us examples. " How vilely 
does this cynic rhyme," he takes from Shakespeare ; and 
Addison speaks of a man degenerating into a cynic. That 
Thackeray's nature was soft and kindly — gentle almost to 
a fault — has been shown elsewhere. But they who have 
called him a cynic have spoken of him merely as a writer 
— and as writer he has certainly taken upon himself the 
special task of barking at the vices and follies of the w^orld 
around him. Any satirist might in the same way be call- 
ed a cynic in so far as his satire goes. Swift was a cynic, 
certainly. Pope was cynical when he was a satirist. Ju- 
venal was all cynical, because he was all satirist. If that 
be what is meant, Thackeray was certainly a cynic. But 
that is not all that the word implies. It intends to go 

back beyond the work of the man, and to describe his 
O 



204 THACKERAY. [chap. 

heart. It says of any satirist so described that he has 
given himself up to satire, not because things^ have been 
evil, but because he himself has been evil. Hamlet is a 
satirist, whereas Thersites is a cynic. If Thackeray be 
judged after this fashion, the word is as inappropriate to 
the writer as to the man. 

But it has to be confessed that Thackeray did allow his 
intellect to be too thoroughly saturated with the aspect of 
the ill side of things. We can trace the operation of his 
mind from his earliest days, when he commenced his paro- 
dies at school ; when he brought out The Snob at Cam- 
bridge, when he sent Yellotvplush out upon the world as 
a satirist on the doings of gentlemen generally ; when he 
wrote his Catherine^ to show the vileness of the taste for 
what he would have called Newgate literature; and The 
Hoggarty Diamond^ to attack bubble companies; and 
Barry Lyndon^ to expose the pride which a rascal may 
take in his rascality. Becky Sharp, Major Pendennis, Bea- 
trix, both as a young and as an old woman, were written 
with the same purpose. There is a touch of satire in 
every drawing that he made. A jeer is needed for some- 
thing that is ridiculous, scorn has to be thrown on some- 
thing that is vile. The same feeling is to be found in 
every line of every ballad. 

VANITAS VANITATUM. 

Methinks the text is never stale, 

And life is every day renewing 
Fresh comments on the old old tale, 

Of Folly, Fortune, Glory, Ruin. 

Hark to the preacher, preaching still ! 

He lifts his voice and cries his sermon. 
Here at St. Peter's of Cornhill, 

As yonder on the Mount of Hermon — 



IX.] THACKEKAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK. 205 

For you and me to heart to take 

(0 dear beloved brother readers), 
To-day — as when the good king spake 

Beneath the solemn Syrian cedars. 

It was just so with him always. He was "crying his 
sermon," hoping, if it might be so, to do something to- 
wards lessening the evils he saw around him. We all 
preach our sermon, but not always with the same earnest- 
ness. He had become so urgent in the cause, so loud in 
his denunciations, that he did not stop often to speak of 
the good things around him. Now and again he paused 
and blessed amid, the torrent of his anathemas. There 
are Dobbin, and Esmond, and Colonel Newcome. But his 
anathemas are the loudest. It has been so, I think, nearly 
always with the eloquent preachers. 

I will insert here — especially here at the end of this 
chapter, in which I have spoken of Thackeray's matter and 
manner of writing, because of the justice of the criticism 
conveyed — the lines which Lord Houghton wrote on his 
death, and which are to be found in the February number 
of The Cornhill of 1864. It was the first number printed 
after his death. I would add that, though no Dean ap- 
plied for permission to bury Thackeray in Westminster 
Abbey, his bust was placed there without delay. What is 
needed by the nation in such a case is simply a lasting 
memorial there, where such memorials are most often seen 
and most highly honoured. But we can all of us sympa- 
thise with the feeling of the poet, writing immediately on 
the loss of such a friend : 

When one, whose nervous English verse 

Public and party hates defied, 
Who bore and bandied many a curse 

Of angry times— when Dryden died, 



206 THACKERAY. [chap, ix 

Our royal abbey's Bishop-Dean 

Waited for no suggestive prayer, 
But, ere one day closed o'er the scene. 

Craved, as a boon, to lay him there. 

The wayward faith, the faulty life. 

Vanished before a nation's pain. 
Panther and Hind forgot their strife. 

And rival statesmen thronged the fane. 

gentle censor of our age ! 

Prime master of our ampler tongue ! 
Whose word of wit and generous page 

Were never wrath, except with wrongs- 
Fielding — without the manner's dross, 

Scott — with a spirit's larger room. 
What Prelate deems thy grave his loss ? 

What Halifax erects thy tomb ? 

But, may be, he — who so could draw 
The hidden great — the humble wise, 

Yielding with them to God's good law, 
Makes the Pantheon where he lies. 



I 



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page is not taken, $300 00 ; one-quarter of such page when whole page 
not taken, $150 00; an Inside Page of advertisement sheet, $250 00; on 
half of such page, $150 00; one -quarter of such page, $75 00; smalh 
cards on an inside page, per line, $2 00: in the Weekly, Outside Pag 
$2 00 a line ; Inside Pages, $1 50 a line : in the Bazar, $1 00 a line : in tl 
Young People, Cover Pages, 50 cents a line. Average : eight words to 
line, twelve lines to an inch. Cuts and display cnarged the same rates f< 
space occupied as solid matter. Remittances should be made by Pos 
Office Money Order or Draft, to avoid chance of loss. 

Address: HARPER & BROTHERS, 

Franklin Square, New York. 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 549 328 6 



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